Civil Rights Activists

"Many northern African Americans saw the war not only as a means of striking down the institution of slavery but as an opportunity to press their demands for full citizenship in a reunited nation. Even in the slavery-free North, African American rights were neither consistent nor secure. Suffrage was restricted to a few New England states, African Americans could not testify in court against a white defendant, and economic rights were not ensured. The justification for such restrictions in the North was that these rights were reserved for citizens of the United States, which free African Americans, not to mention slaves, were not. The conflict with the South, therefore, became a venue where African Americans, by demonstrating their loyalty and willingness to sacrifice for the benefit of the federal government, could improve their social status or even gain citizenship. Many African American leaders believed blacks should deny their services to the government until offered the reward of citizenship. Frederick Douglass told a Boston crowd, "Nothing short of open recognition of the Negro's manhood, his rights as such to have a country equally with others, would induce me to join the army in any capacity. Many other African Americans, however, eagerly volunteered their services to the federal government after the assault on Fort Sumter."

"Frederick Douglass was one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement which fought to end slavery within the United States in the decades prior to the Civil War. He eagerly attended the founding meeting of the Republican Party in 1854 and campaigned for its nominees. A brilliant speaker, Douglass was asked by the American Anti-Slavery Society to engage in a tour of lectures, and so became recognized as one of America's first great black speakers. He won world fame when his autobiography The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, in which he gave specific details of his bondage, was publicized in 1845. Two years later, he began publishing an anti-slavery paper called the North Star. He was appointed Minister Resident and Consul General to Haiti by President Benjamin Harrison on July 1, 1889, the first black citizen to hold high rank in the U.S. government. Douglass served as an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and fought for the adoption of constitutional amendments that guaranteed voting rights and other civil liberties for blacks. After the Civil War, Douglass realized that the war for citizenship had just begun when Democrat President Andrew Johnson proved to be a determined opponent of land redistribution and civil and political rights for former slaves. Douglass began the postwar era relying on the same themes that he preached in the antebellum years: economic self-reliance, political agitation, and coalition building. Douglass provided a powerful voice for human rights during this period of American history and is still revered today for his contributions against racial injustice."

"In contrast to the contemporary black Americans, the black Americans, in that era, were in solid support of the Republican Party. This was the party that fought the northern and southern Democrats to pass the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Although President Andrew Johnson tried to bamboozle Frederick Douglass to the Democrat side by making false or empty promises, he did not succeed. Douglass was no fool and was not going to let Johnson use him to gain the support of the Negroes in his effort to be 'elected' president. Frederick Douglass and other prominent Blacks threw their support to Ulysses S. Grant for president."

"Many Negroes responded enthusiastically to such appeals [as those by Douglass]. But others still held back. This was especially true in New York City, where Douglass, Henry Highland Garnet, and other speakers urged colored men to enlist at a meeting in Shiloh Church on April 27. In spite of their eloquence, only one recruit came forward. Douglass was appalled, and told the audience that he was ashamed of them. A Mr. Robert Johnson arose and defended the Negroes of New York, and, according to the report of the affair, "by a few well-spoken words, [he] convinced the meeting that it was not cowardice which made the young men hesitate to enlist, but a proper respect for their own manhood. If the Government wanted their services, let it guarantee to them all the rights of citizens and soldiers, and, instead of one man, he would insure them 5,000 men in twenty days. Mr. J's remarks were received with tremendous and long-continued applause.""

"Douglass was born a slave, he won his liberty. He is of negro extraction, and consequently was despised and outraged. He has by his own energy and force of character commanded the respect of the nation. He was ignorant, he has, against law and by stealth and entirely unaided, educated himself He was poor, he has by honest toil and industry become rich and independent, so to speak. He, a chattel slave of a hated and cruelly wronged race, in the teeth of American prejudice and in face of nearly every kind of hindrance and drawback, has come to be one of the foremost orators of the age, with a reputation established on both sides of the Atlantic; a writer of power and elegance of expression. A thinker whose views are potent in controlling and shaping public opinion; a high officer in the national government. A cultivated gentleman whose virtues as a husband, father, and citizen are the highest honor a man can have."

"As Frederick Douglass observed in his autobiography, under this system of modified serfdom, the Black sharecropper was "free from the individual master," but was now "the slave of society.""

"It was the great Frederick Douglass, who had a price on his head, who said “Without struggle, there is no progress.” And echoing his words was the answer of the great abolitionist poet, James Russell Lowell: “The limits of tyranny is proscribed by the measure of our resistance to it”."

"Those damned sons of bitches thought they had me in a trap! I know that damned Douglass; he's just like any nigger, and he would sooner cut a white man's throat than not."

"I’ve been inspired by the profound and timeless writings of James Baldwin, Frederick Douglass, Toni Morrison, and Nina Simone."

"We helped plow the fields, build the dams, write the poems and sing the music of America. Are not all Americans proud, of Doree Miller, of Frederick Douglass, of Paul Robeson, of Joe Louis, of Marian Anderson."

"Our Douglass, too, with his massive brain,/Who plead our cause with his broken chain,/And helped to hurl from his bloody seat/The curse that writhed and died at his feet."

"As a public speaker, he excels in pathos, wit, comparison, imitation, strength of reasoning, and fluency of language. There is in him that union of head and heart, which is indispensable to an enlightenment of the heads and a winning of the hearts of others."

"The struggle for the right of women to vote was nationwide and growing. It had started with the first Equal Rights Convention, at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, which was addressed by Frederick Douglass, the great Negro leader. The suffragists had been ridiculed, assaulted by mobs, refused halls, arrested for attempting to vote, disowned by their families."

"Under Roman law as well as in the United States, slaves were deprived of legally recognized spouses or families and of genuine property ownership. As with most domestic animals, their lowly status was enforced by the threat of almost unlimited physical punishment. As Frederick Douglass put it, after describing the ways that the “slave breaker” Mr. Covey had “tamed” him: “I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!” In an earlier essay on this subject, I have theorized that, given the repeated comparisons of slaves to domestic animals throughout history (and Aristotle wrote that the ox was “a poor man’s slave”), the initial enslavement and “bestialization” of prisoners of war may well have been modeled on the successful techniques of taming and domesticating wild animals. But some animals could never be domesticated, and even those slaves who at times felt themselves transformed, like Douglass, into “brutes” did not lose their essential humanity, a fact that repeatedly underscored the preeminent contradiction of “inhuman bondage.” Indeed, one of the central and inspiring truths of African American history, a truth dramatized by fugitives like Frederick Douglass, was the way slaves succeeded in asserting their humanity and reinventing their diverse cultures, despite being torn away from their natal African families and societies, despite being continuously humiliated, bought and sold, and often subjected to torture and the threat of death. Thus the word “inhuman,” in this book’s title, refers to the unconscionable and unsuccessful goal of bestializing (in the form of pets as well as beasts of burden) a class of human beings. This is not meant to deny, as much slave testimony indicates, that some slaves suffered recurrent psychological as well as physical damage."

"There's a long tradition of music as education and of situating education at the center of our social struggles. Frederick Douglass, for example, talked about how important it was for enslaved Black people to educate themselves. Because once they began to educate themselves, they would no longer be slaves."

"During the July 18, 1863 evening assault on Fort Wagner, Confederate artillery took a frightful toll on the ranks of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry, massed at the base of the parapet, while the sounds of exploding shells and hissing lead fragments mingled with the screams and shouts of men. Above the din, the powerful voice of the regiment's sergeant major, Lewis Douglass, urged the men forward. "Come on boys," Douglass bellowed, "we are on review today before Governor Andrew." His reference to the state executive who authorized the regiment drew cheers from the men as they rallied and stormed the fortification. Douglass might have summoned another name to inspire the troops- his father, Frederick Douglass. The elder Douglass played an important role in the formation of the Fifty-fourth, with the publication of "Men of Color, to Arms!" a few months before the battle at Fort Wagner."

"The political and military events that gradually turned the Union army into an army of liberation, aided by the Emancipation Proclamation as the predictable next step. How could the war have continued much longer without turning it into a war for emancipation and not merely to preserve the Union? And how could the Union cause have triumphed without the arming of black men? But in truth, Lincoln's decision was a huge break with the past. Shortly before the proclamation was to take effect, Frederick Douglass, who had pushed hard for emancipation, celebrated with these words: "This is scarcely a day for prose. It is a day for poetry and song, a new song." Douglass rightly celebrated the day as a major step towards emancipation, and that is how we recall this crucial turning point, but he also recognized that it was a milestone in the relationship between the federal government and black men, both free and soon to be freed. When the Lincoln administration finally agreed to let black men take up arms against the Confederacy, an important door opened that would be very difficult to close. By arming black men, the Union was acknowledging something about black humanity and specifically about the manhood of these new soldiers. The administration was also implicitly acknowledging that they needed these new recruits to help win the war and restore the Union. Although celebrated as an immense moral step, the Emancipation Proclamation and the subsequent recruitment of soldiers into the regiments of the United States Colored Troops represented decisions born out of explicit military necessity, and they were presented to Northern voters on those terms."

"As an orator, writer and editor, Douglass holds an honored place among the gifted men of his day. As a man of business and a public officer he has been preeminently successful; honest and upright in all his dealings, he bears an enviable reputation. As a husband, father, neighbor and friend, in all social relations, he has been faithful and steadfast to the end. He was the only man I ever knew who understood the degradation of disfranchisement for women. !!!!! Through all the long years of our struggle he has been a familiar figure on our platform, with always an inspiring word to say. In the very first convention he helped me to carry the resolution I had penned, demanding woman suffrage. Frederick Douglass is not dead! His grand character will long be an object lesson in our national history; his lofty sentiments of liberty, justice and equality, echoed on every platform over our broad land, must influence and inspire many coming generations!"

"To Douglass it was a war of liberation, pure and simple. In the May issue of his paper he let himself go. Amid sprawling drawings of the American flag and eagle he exulted, "Freedom for all, or chains for all." A few lines further on he added sardonically that his assurance could be traced "less to the virtue of the North than to the villainy of the South." But since it was a war of emancipation, as he felt, he had a suggestion for the new president as to how it should be waged. "Let the slaves and free colored people be called into service and formed into a liberating army, to march into the South and raise the banner of Emancipation among the slaves." To his surprise, however, Lincoln failed to jump at the suggestion. Negro enlistments in the navy were accepted without question, in view of practice long established, but the president wanted to think about this army thing. What Douglass did not know at the time, of course, the extent to which Lincoln's efforts to hold the border states in line and his behind-the-scenes struggles with other Republicans in the government accounted for his reluctance to change the Negro's status."

"If things are allowed to go on as they are, it is certain that slavery is to be abolished. By the time the north shall have attained the power, the black race will be in a large majority, and then we will have black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything. Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand for that? It is not a supposable case. War will break out everywhere like hidden fire from the earth. We will be overpowered and our men will be compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth, and as for our women, the horrors of their state we cannot contemplate in imagination. We will be completely exterminated, and the land will be left in the possession of the blacks, and then it will go back to a wilderness and become another Africa or Saint Domingo. Join the north and what will become of you? They will hate you and your institutions as much as they do now, and treat you accordingly. Suppose they elevated Charles Sumner to the presidency? Suppose they elevated Fred Douglass, your escaped slave, to the presidency? What would be your position in such an event? I say give me pestilence and famine sooner than that."

"Frederick Douglass would rejoice, for he fought not only slavery but the oppression of women."

"(What direction do you see the movement in the U.S. taking at this time?) I think it has become less domestic and more international. Marcus Garvey tried to articulate, after all, quite a long time ago, and even Frederick Douglass, that the situation of the black American slave was tied to the situation of the slaves all over the world."

"Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains."

"I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion."

"Partly from a love of music, and partly from curiosity to see persons of color exaggerating the peculiarities of their race, we were induced last evening to hear these Serenaders. The Company is said to be composed entirely of colored people, and it may be so. We observed, however, that they too had recourse to the burnt cork and lamp black, the better to express their characters and to produce uniformity of complexion. Their lips, too, were evidently painted, and otherwise exaggerated. Their singing generally was but an imitation of white performers, and not even a tolerable representation of the character of colored people. Their attempts at wit showed them to possess a plentiful lack of it, and gave their audience a very low idea of the shrewdness and sharpness of the race to which they belong. With two or three exceptions, they were a poor set, and will make themselves ridiculous wherever they go. We heard but one really fine voice among the whole, and that was Cooper's, who is truly an excellent singer; and a company possessing equal ability with himself, would no doubt, be very successful in commanding the respect and patronage of the public generally. Davis (the Bones) too, is certainly a master player; but the Tambourine was an utter failure. B. Richardson is an extraordinary character. His Virginia Breakdown excelled anything which we have ever seen of that description of dancing. He is certainly far before the dancer in the Company of the Campbells. We are not sure that our readers will approve of our mention of those persons, so strong must be their dislike of everything that seems to feed the flame of American prejudice against colored people; and in this they may be right, but we think otherwise. It is something gained when the colored man in any form can appear before a white audience; and we think that even this company, with industry, application, and a proper cultivation of their taste, may yet be instrumental in removing the prejudice against our race. But they must cease to exaggerate the exaggerations of our enemies; and represent the colored man rather as he is, than as Ethiopian Minstrels usually represent him to be. They will then command the respect of both races; whereas now they only shock the taste of the one, and provoke the disgust of the other. Let Cooper, Davis and Richardson bring around themselves persons of equal skill, and seek to improve, relying more upon the refinement of the public, than its vulgarity; let them strive to conform to it, rather than to cater to the lower elements of the baser sort, and they may do much to elevate themselves and their race in popular estimation."

"American slaveholders must prepare, not only to be excluded from the communion of British Christians, but peremptorily driven from the platform of every philanthropic association. Let them be hemmed in on every side. Let them be placed beyond the pale of respectability, and, standing out separated, alone in their infamy, let the storm gather over them, and its hottest bolts descend. Our justification is ample:—the slaveholder is a man - stealer."

"In this mean work of detraction, we scarcely need say that the miserable dough - face who edits the Cass paper in this city, and through whom our daughter was basely excluded from "Seward Seminary," on account of her complexion, very appropriately took the lead. This self - elected umpire of taste in the city of Rochester, claims as much skill in matters relating to the harmony of sounds, as he assumes with respect to the harmony of colors. We warn the good people of Rochester against attending either seminaries or concerts, on pain of being expelled from respectable and refined society, should they venture to do so before obtaining the opinion of this "most learned judge" whose word is sufficient to set at defiance and veto the wishes of a whole seminary of young ladies and misses. We believe he does not object to the "Virginia Minstrels," "Christy's Minstrels," the "Ethiopian Serenaders," or any of the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied to them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow - citizens. Those performers are undoubtedly in harmony with his refined and elegant taste!"

"Nature does not make your existence depend upon me, or mine depend upon yours. I cannot walk upon your legs, or you upon mine. I cannot breathe for you, or you for me; I must breathe for myself, and you for yourself. We are distinct persons, and are each equally provided with faculties necessary to our individual existence. In leaving you, I took nothing but what belonged to me, and in no way lessened your means for obtaining an honest living. Your faculties remained yours, and mine became useful to their rightful owner. I therefore see no wrong in any part of the transaction."

"There is something about Hayti which we have to deplore, and so there is about the United States. Let us go back 100 years and look at Hayti, and we find it surrounded by slavery and the whole Caribbean Sea reddened by the curse."

"Slavery has left behind it a spirit that still delights in human blood. Outrage, murder, and assassination are the inheritance of the freed men and women of the South. Neither our government nor our civilization seems able to stop the flow of blood. As in the time of slavery, the Church is silent."

"The health of the white people requires that the negro cabin be kept clean; and the maintenance of chastity there is necessary for the protection of woman throughout the land. The need of making the black man more intelligent and conscientious has already been so far recognized by the South, that she has remodelled her entire school system for his benefit; and her desire to make him more valuable as a member of the community, cannot long permit him to be lynched or otherwise maltreated. Her memory of the misrule of the carpet - baggers will grow fainter; and she will finally be able to see that even the illiterate voter is not so dangerous a citizen in a republic as the man who has not this reason to interest himself in its welfare. The South may be much slower than we could wish in reaching these conclusions; but no others will be found permanently satisfactory to her; and it is by no means certain that her pace will be quickened by a display of federal bayonets."

"There is no conceivable reason why all colored people should not be treated according to the merits of each individual. It is not only the plain duty, but also the interest of us all, to have every colored man take the place for which he is best fitted by education, character, ability, manners, and culture. If others insist on keeping him in any lower and poorer place, it is not only his injury, but our universal loss. Yet which of our white congregations would take a colored pastor? How many of our New England villages would like to have colored postmasters, or doctors, or lawyers, or teachers in the public schools? A very slight difference in complexion suffices to keep a young man from getting a place as policeman, or fireman, or conductor, even on the horse cars. The trades-unions are closed against him, and so are many of our stores; while those which admit him are obliged to refuse him promotion on account of the unwillingness of white men to serve under him."

"If the Republican party shall fail to carry out this purpose, God will raise up another party that will be faithful."

"It was once said by Abraham Lincoln that this Republic could not long endure half slave and half free; and the same may be said with even more truth of the black citizens of this country. They cannot remain half slave and half free. They must be one thing or the other. And this brings me to consider the alternative now presented between slavery and freedom in this country. From my outlook, I am free to affirm that I see nothing for the negro of the South but a condition of absolute freedom, or of absolute slavery. I see no half - way place for him. One or the other of these conditions is to solve the so - called negro problem. There are forces at work in both of these directions, and for the present that which aims at the re - enslavement of the negro seems to have the advantage. Let it be remembered that the labor of the negro is his only capital. Take this from him, and he dies from starvation. The present mode of obtaining his labor in the South gives the old master - class a complete mastery over him. I showed this in my last annual celebration address, and I need not go into it here. The payment of the negro by orders on stores, where the storekeeper controls price, quality, and quantity, and is subject to no competition, so that the negro must buy there and nowhere else–an arrangement by which the negro never has a dollar to lay by, and can be kept in debt to his employer, year in and year out–puts him completely at the mercy of the old master - class. He who could say to the negro, when a slave, you shall work for me or be whipped to death, can now say to him with equal emphasis, you shall work for me, or I will starve you to death... This is the plain, matter - of - fact, and unexaggerated condition of the plantation negro in the Southern States today."

"Well, now the American people have returned the Republican party to power; and the question is, what will it do? ... For a dozen years and more the Republican party has seemed in a measure paralyzed in the presence of high - handed fraud and brutal violence toward its newly - made citizens. The question now is, will it regain its former health, activity, and power? Will it be as true to its friends in the South as the Democratic party has been to its friends in that section, or will it sacrifice its friends to conciliate its enemies? ... Not only the negro but all honest men, north and south, must hold the Republican party in contempt, if it fails to do its whole duty at this point. The Republican party has made the colored man free; and the Republican party must make him secure in his freedom, or abandon its pretensions."

"There are buildings which will hold a few, but which will break down under the weight of a crowd. The ice of the river may be strong enough to bear a man, but would break through under the weight of an elephant. The ice under us in this country is very thin, and is made very weak by the warm fogs of prejudice... Our policy should be to unite with the great mass of the American people in all their activities, and resolve to fall or flourish with our common country. We cannot afford to draw the color - line in politics, trade, education, manners, religion, fashion, or civilization. Especially we cannot afford to draw the color - line in politics. No folly could be greater. A party acting on that basis would be not merely a misfortune, but a dire calamity to our people."

"One thing which they ought to do, in order to hold their own against this enemy, is to give up cultivating what they call 'race pride', a sentiment too much like that which is 'the lion in the way' of our progress... Do we not know that every argument we make, and every pretension we set up in favor of race pride, is giving the enemy a stick to break our own heads? ... You will, perhaps, think this criticism uncalled for. My answer is that truth is never uncalled for... In some of our colored public journals I have seen myself charged with a lack of race pride. I am not ashamed of that charge. I have no apology or vindication to offer. If fifty years of uncompromising devotion to the cause of the colored man in this country does not vindicate me, I am content to live without vindication. While I have no more reason to be proud of one race than another, I dare to say, and I fear no contradiction, that there is no other man in the United States prouder than myself of any great achievement, mental or mechanical, of which any colored man or woman is the author. This not because I am a colored man, but because I am a man; and because color is a misfortune, and is treated as a crime by the American people."

"I deny and utterly scout the idea, that there is now, properly speaking, any such thing as a negro problem before the American people. It is not the negro, educated or illiterate, intelligent or ignorant, who is on trial, or whose qualities are giving trouble to the nation... The real question, the all - commanding question, is whether American justice, American liberty, American civilization, American law, and American Christianity can be made to include and protect, alike and forever, all American citizens... It is whether this great nation shall conquer its prejudices, rise to the dignity of its professions, and proceed in the sublime course of truth and liberty marked out for itself during the late war, or shall swing back to its ancient moorings of slavery and barbarism. The trouble is that the colored people have still to contend against ’a fierce and formidable foe,’ the ghost of a by - gone, dead and buried institution."

"I am sometimes asked 'How are your people getting along at the South?' I am at a loss sometimes to know to whom they refer. Who are my people at the South? I am in a position to speak more impartially, perhaps, than any man in this room as regards the merits of the two races, for I occupy a middle position... It would be as appropriate to ask, ’How are the white people of the South getting along?’ as to ask how the colored people are getting along. The two should go together: one cannot get along without the other... Men ask me if I don’t think that the condition of the freedmen is hopeless. I tell them ’Never!’ I have seen too much progress."

"The Republican Party is the ship and all else is the sea around us."

"His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun. Mine was bounded by time. His stretched away to the silent shores of eternity. I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave. I could live for the slave. John Brown could die for the slave."

"Men have their choice in this world. They can be angels, or they may be demons. In the apocalyptic vision, John describes a war in heaven. You have only to strip that vision of its gorgeous Oriental drapery, divest it of its shining and celestial ornaments, clothe it in the simple and familiar language of common sense, and you will have before you the eternal conflict between right and wrong, good and evil, liberty and slavery, truth and falsehood, the glorious light of love, and the appalling darkness of human selfishness and sin. The human heart is a seat of constant war… Just what takes place in individual human hearts, often takes place between nations, and between individuals of the same nation."

"I knew that however bad the Republican party was, the Democratic party was much worse. The elements of which the Republican party was composed gave better ground for the ultimate hope of the success of the colored man's cause than those of the Democratic party."

"Your wickedness and cruelty committed in this respect on your fellow creatures, are greater than all the stripes you have laid upon my back or theirs. It is an outrage upon the soul, a war upon the immortal spirit, and one for which you must give account at the bar of our common Father and Creator."

"I know there is a hope in religion; I know there is faith and I know there is prayer about religion and necessary to it, but God is most glorified when there is peace on earth and good will towards men."

"I dwell mostly upon the religious aspects, because I believe it is the religious people who are to be relied upon in this Anti-Slavery movement. Do not misunderstand my railing—do not class me with those who despise religion—do not identify me with the infidel. I love the religion of Christianity—which cometh from above—which is a pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of good fruits, and without hypocrisy. I love that religion which sends its votaries to bind up the wounds of those who have fallen among thieves. By all the love I bear such a Christianity as this, I hate that of the Priest and the Levite, that with long - faced Phariseeism goes up to Jerusalem to worship and leaves the bruised and wounded to die. I despise that religion which can carry Bibles to the heathen on the other side of the globe and withhold them from the heathen on this side—which can talk about human rights yonder and traffic in human flesh here.... I love that which makes its votaries do to others as they would that others should do to them. I hope to see a revival of it—thank God it is revived. I see revivals of it in the absence of the other sort of revivals. I believe it to be confessed now, that there has not been a sensible man converted after the old sort of way, in the last five years."

"The man who is right is a majority. We, who have God and conscience on our side, have a majority against the universe."

"Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word? I shall never forget that memorable night, when in a distant city I waited and watched at a public meeting, with three thousand others not less anxious than myself, for the word of deliverance which we have heard read today. Nor shall I ever forget the outburst of joy and thanksgiving that rent the air when the lightning brought to us the emancipation proclamation. In that happy hour we forgot all delay, and forgot all tardiness, forgot that the President had bribed the rebels to lay down their arms by a promise to withhold the bolt which would smite the slave - system with destruction; and we were thenceforward willing to allow the President all the latitude of time, phraseology, and every honorable device that statesmanship might require for the achievement of a great and beneficent measure of liberty and progress."

"Under his rule, assisted by the greatest captain of our age, and his inspiration, we saw the Confederate States, based upon the idea that our race must be slaves, and slaves forever, battered to pieces and scattered to the four winds; under his rule, and in the fullness of time, we saw Abraham Lincoln, after giving the slave - holders three months' grace in which to save their hateful slave system, penning the immortal paper, which, though special in its language, was general in its principles and effect, making slavery forever impossible in the United States. Though we waited long, we saw all this and more."

"When, therefore, it shall be asked what we have to do with the memory of Abraham Lincoln, or what Abraham Lincoln had to do with us, the answer is ready, full, and complete. Though he loved Caesar less than Rome, though the Union was more to him than our freedom or our future, under his wise and beneficent rule we saw ourselves gradually lifted from the depths of slavery to the heights of liberty and manhood; under his wise and beneficent rule, and by measures approved and vigorously pressed by him, we saw that the handwriting of ages, in the form of prejudice and proscription, was rapidly fading away from the face of our whole country; under his rule, and in due time, about as soon after all as the country could tolerate the strange spectacle, we saw our brave sons and brothers laying off the rags of bondage, and being clothed all over in the blue uniforms of the soldiers of the United States; under his rule we saw two hundred thousand of our dark and dusky people responding to the call of Abraham Lincoln, and with muskets on their shoulders, and eagles on their buttons, timing their high footsteps to liberty and union under the national flag; under his rule we saw the independence of the black republic of Haiti, the special object of slave - holding aversion and horror, fully recognized, and her minister, a colored gentleman, duly received here in the city of Washington; under his rule we saw the internal slave - trade, which so long disgraced the nation, abolished, and slavery abolished in the District of Columbia; under his rule we saw for the first time the law enforced against the foreign slave trade, and the first slave - trader hanged like any other pirate or murderer."