Frederick Douglass

The Republican Party is only negatively anti-slavery. It is opposed to the political power of slavery, rather than to slavery itself.

The murderer is better protected than the man without crime. The robber is better protected than the robbed.

The ruling parties of the country have now flung off all disguises, and have openly and shamelessly declared war upon the only saving principles known to nations.

I feel greatly embarrassed when I attempt to address an audience of white people. I am not used to speak to them, and it makes me tremble when I do so, because I have always looked up to them with fear.

The religion of the south—as I have observed it and proved it—is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes; the justifier of the most appalling barbarity; a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds; and a secure shelter, under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal abominations fester and flourish.

If he knows as much when he is sober as an Irishman knows when drunk, he knows enough to vote, on good American principles. [Laughter and applause.]

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.

The soul that is within me no man can degrade.

A man’s rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.

I didn’t know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted.

The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.

Without struggle, there is no progress.

The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us... I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief. Do nothing with us!

I would rather be a free man and a poor one, than a rich slave.

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power.

The man who has suffered the wrong is the man to demand the right—the man who has suffered the wrong is the man to describe the wrong—the man who has suffered the wrong is the man to expose the wrong—and it shall be so with me.

The American church is a stronghold of slavery.

I have no love for America, as such; I have no patriotism. I have no country. I have no brother, no sister, no father, no mother, no wife, no children, but what are in chains.

The fact is, the people of the South are not more in favor of slavery, than the people of the North are opposed to it.