In the Words of Frederick Douglass

Quotations from Liberty's Champion

Frederick Douglass, John R. McKivigan, Heather L. Kaufman

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780801463693

"No people are more talked about and no people seem more imperfectly understood. Those who see us every day seem not to know us."—Frederick Douglass on African Americans

"There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution."—on civil rights

"Woman should have justice as well as praise, and if she is to dispense with either, she can better afford to part with the latter than the former."—on women

"The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion."—on rebellion

"A man is never lost while he still earnestly thinks himself worth saving; and as with a man, so with a nation."—on perseverance

"I am ever pleased to see a man rise from among the people. Every such man is prophetic of the good time coming."—on Lincoln

Frederick Douglass, a runaway Maryland slave, was witness to and participant in some of the most important events in the history of the American Republic between the years of 1818 and 1895. Beginning his long public career in 1841 as an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Douglass subsequently edited four newspapers and championed many reform movements. An advocate of morality, economic accumulation, self-help, and equality, Douglass supported racial pride, constant agitation against racial discrimination, vocational education for blacks, and nonviolent passive resistance.

He was the only man who played a prominent role at the 1848 meeting in Seneca Falls that formally launched the women's rights movement. He was a temperance advocate and opposed capital punishment, lynching, debt peonage, and the convict lease system. A staunch defender of the Liberty and Republican parties, Douglass held several political appointments, frequently corresponded with leading politicians, and advised Presidents Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and Harrison. He met with John Brown before his abortive raid on Harpers Ferry, helped to recruit African American troops during the Civil War, attended most national black conventions held between 1840 and 1895, and served as U.S. ambassador to Haiti.

Frederick Douglass has left one of the most extensive bodies of significant and quotable public statements of any figure in American history. In the Words of Frederick Douglass is a rich trove of quotations from Douglass. The editors have compiled nearly seven hundred quotations by Douglass that demonstrate the breadth and strength of his intellect as well as the eloquence with which he expressed his political and ethical principles.

THE WORDS OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Abolition

(see also Colonization, Emancipation)

The real and only-to-be-relied-on movement for the abolition of slavery in this country, and throughout the world, is a great moral and religious movement. The work of which is, the enlightenment of the public mind, the quickening and enlightening of the dead conscience of the nation into life, and to a sense of the gross injustice, fraud, wrong and inhumanity of enslaving their fellow-men,—the fixing in the soul of the nation an invincible abhorrence of the whole system of slaveholding; and begetting in it a firm and inflexible determination to rid itself of its guiltiness in the matter. My means for the attainment of this deeply-desired and long-prayed-for end, are the simple proclamation of the word of Truth, written and spoken in the love of it, and in faith believing that the God of truth will give it success.

—Correspondence: Douglass to William Lloyd Garrison, October 27, 1844, Douglass Papers, ser. 3, 1:33

Yet the cause shall not suffer; the star, whose feeble light had become painful, shall yet become a sun, whose brilliant rays shall scorch, blister and burn, till slavery shall be utterly consumed.

—Correspondence: Douglass to William Lloyd Garrison, September 16, 1845, Douglass Papers, ser. 3, 1:53

It is clear that Slavery in our country can only be abolished by creating a public opinion favorable to its abolition, and this can only be done by enlightening the Public mind—by exposing the character of slavery and enforcing the great principle of justice and humanity against it. To do this with what ability I may possess is plainly my duty. To shrink from doing so, on any fitting occasion, from a mere fear of giving offence to those implicated in the wickedness, would be to betray the sacred trust committed to me, and to act the part of a coward.

—Correspondence: Douglass to Thurlow Weed, December 1, 1845, Douglass Papers, ser. 3, 1:67–68

Let slavery be hemmed in on every side by the moral and religious sentiments of mankind, and its death is certain.

—Correspondence: Douglass to William Lloyd Garrison, April 16, 1846, Douglass Papers, ser. 3, 1:110

I expose slavery…because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death.

—Speech: “American Slavery, American Religion, and the Free Church of Scotland,” May 22, 1846, Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 1:294

Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home.

—Speech: “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” July 5, 1852, Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 2:383

The Anti-Slavery movement has little to entitle it to being called a new thing under the sun in view of any just historical test. I know nothing original about it. Its ideas and arguments were already to the hand of the present work-men; the oldest abolitionist of to-day is but the preacher of a faith, frames and practised long before he was born. The patriots of the American Revolution clearly saw, and with all their inconsistency, they had the grace to confess, the abhorrent character of Slavery, and to hopefully predict its overthrow and complete extirpation. Washington, and Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Luther Martin, Franklin, and Adams, Madison, and Monroe, and a host of earnest Statesmen, Jurists, Scholars, and Divines of the country, were among those who looked forward to this happy consummation.

—Speech: “The Anti-Slavery Movement,” March 18, 1855, Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 3:21

The difference between abolitionists and those by whom they are opposed, is not as to principles. All are agreed in respect to these. The manner of applying them is the point of difference.

—Speech: “The Anti-Slavery Movement,” March 18, 1855, Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 3:46

Generations unborn will envy us the felicity of having been born at a time when such noble work could be accomplished, when the foundations can be laid deep and strong for the future liberation of the race.

—Editorial: “The Do-Nothing Policy,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper, September 12, 1856

Blacks

Remember that we are one, that our cause is one, that we must help each other, if we would succeed. We have drank to the dregs the bitter cup of slavery; we have worn the heavy yoke; we have sighed beneath our bonds, and writhed beneath the bloody lash;—cruel mementoes of our oneness are indelibly marked in our living flesh. We are one with you under the ban of prejudice and proscription—one with you under the slander of inferiority—one with you in social and political disfranchisement. What you suffer, we suffer; what you endure, we endure. We are indissolubly united, and must fall or flourish together.

—Editorial “To Our Oppressed Countrymen,” North Star, December 3, 1847

Disunionism

I welcome the bolt, either from the North or the South, which shall shatter this Union; for under this Union lie the prostrate forms of three millions with whom I am identified. In consideration of their wrongs, of their sufferings, of their groans, I welcome the bolt, either from the celestial or the infernal regions, which shall sever this Union in twain.

—Speech: “Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country,” September 24, 1847, Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 2:95

Persecution

“To make war upon the church of the living God.” What less than the flames off hell is an adequate punishment for such a heaven-daring crime? What! speak evil of the men who minister at the altar as the Most High? For such reckless wickedness—for such sacrilegious temerity, let his character be blasted forever, brand him infidel, stamp him an atheist, call his disorganizer, and warn the world against him as a moist dangerous man. Such is bit a faint picture of the malignity of religious persecution, as it is at this moment carried on against the abolitionists.

—Editorial: “American Religion and American Slavery,” North Star, June 17, 1850

Violent Tactics

The only way to make the Fugitive Slave Law a dead letter, is to make a few dead slave-catchers. There is no need to kill them either—shoot them in the legs, and send them to the South [as] living epistles of the free gospel preached here at the North.

—Speech: “John Brown’s Contributions to the Abolition Movement,” December 3, 1860, Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 3:419

Women

They filled me with admiration, as I viewed them occupying their noble position; a few women, almost alone in a community of thousands, asserting truths and living out principles at once hated and feared by almost the entire community; and doing all this with a composure and serenity of soul which would well compare with the most experienced champion and standard bearer of our cause, Friend Garrison himself. Heaven bless them, and continue them strength to withstand all trials through which their principles may call them to pass.

—Correspondence: Douglass to James Miller McKim, September 5, 1844, Douglass Papers, ser. 3, 1:28

When the true history of the antislavery cause shall be written, woman will occupy a large space in its pages, for the cause of the slave has been peculiarly woman’s cause.

—Autobiography: Life and Times, 1881, p. 367

Observing woman’s agency, devotion and efficiency in pleading the cause of the slave, gratitude for this high service early moved me to give favorable attention to the subject of what is called “Woman’s Rights” and caused me to be denominated a woman’s-rights-man. I am glad to say I have never been ashamed to be thus designated.

—Autobiography: Life and Times, 1881, p. 370

African American Character

One thing is certain—whether we are capable, or have natural abilities to rise from a condition in ...

Table of contents

• FOREWORD
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• FREDERICK DOUGLASS CHRONOLOGY
• THE WORDS OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS
• NOTE ON EDITORIAL METHOD
• SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY