Frederick Douglass

Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.

I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us.

The American people are a nation of inconsistencies.

I have been branded a 'disturber of the peace.'

Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they certainly must pay for all they get.

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.

I am a Republican, and I hail every advance of the Republican party as an advance of liberty.

The soul of the nation is in the crucible, and the result, for good or for evil, is yet to be seen.

I am not for Negro equality, but for the equality of all men.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.

What is the use of a man if he is not free?

I have had but one idea for the last three years, to present the Negro as a man, and to demand his rights as a man.

The destiny of the colored American, however, is not a question for the colored people themselves, but for the American people at large.

I am not a Free-Soiler, but a Liberty man.

The man who is not a Abolitionist is a slaveholder.

I look around and see a nation of hypocrites.

The true remedy for all the ills of life is freedom.

I have seen enough of slavery to know that it is a curse to the master as well as to the slave.

Neither I, nor any other man, can be free while others are enslaved.

I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me.