Frederick Douglass

I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes,—a justifier of the most appalling barbarity,—a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds,—and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection.

The blow we strike is not merely to free a negro or a mulatto, but to liberate a man.

The man who has suffered the wrong is the man to demand redress.

I am for any movement whenever there is a good cause to promote, a right to assert, a chain to be broken, a burden to be removed, or a wrong to be redressed.

The real 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.

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity.

The spirit of freedom is abroad in the world. It is walking in the light of the nineteenth century.

Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle.

The true course for the American people to pursue is to do full justice to the negro.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.