Frederick Douglass: “In consideration of these facts, I feel that I have a right to speak, and to speak strongly.”

It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.

The black man (unlike the Indian) loves civilization.

My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes.

We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.