It was enough for me to listen—to receive and applaud the great words of others, and only whisper in private, among the white laborers on the wharves, and elsewhere, the truths which burned in my breast.
Douglass recounts his early, private efforts to share abolitionist truths among laborers before he became a public speaker.
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Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.
Father he might be, and not be husband, and could sell his own child without incurring reproach, if in its veins coursed one drop of African blood.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.