He is only a part of the great public, and while he has the right to walk, ride, and be accommodated with food and shelter in a public conveyance or hotel, he has no exclusive right to say that another citizen, tall or short, black or white, shall not have the same civil treatment with himself.
Douglass explains that while individuals have rights in public spaces, these rights do not grant exclusivity over those spaces.
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More from Frederick Douglass
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.
In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.
They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.