Frederick Douglass: “Such leaders should remember that men will not be religious when the devil turns preacher.”

He was called upon not merely to administer the government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.

I wished it was possible I could remain small all my life, knowing that the sooner I grew large the shorter would be my time to remain with them.

Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.

This was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit, the white man’s power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man.