Frederick Douglass Quotes

The Constitution of the United States is a pro slavery instrument, and no consistent anti slavery person should either vote or hold office under it

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure half slave and half free.

It is proclaimed by the great leaders of that party, by its political conventions, by its ministers of the Gospel, and by every other means they have of giving currency and importance to the declaration, that it is its mission to abolish slavery in the Union.

Another clause in the Constitution is a contract on the part of the non-slaveholding States to seize and restore runaway slaves--but why restore when you have taught the slave that he has a right to freedom?

restriction on the legislative power is not peculiar to the Constitution of the United States; it was borrowed from Magna Carta; was brought to America by our ancestors, as part of their inherited liberties, and has existed in all the States, usually in the very words of the great charter. It existed in every political community in America in 1787, when the ordinance prohibiting slavery north and west of the Ohio was passed

Repudiating all previous party attachments, names and predilections, we unite ourselves together in defense of the liberty and constitution of the country, and will hereafter co-operate as the Republican party, pledged to the accomplishment of the following purposes: to bring the administration of the government back to the control of first principles; to restore Nebraska and Kansas to the position of free Territories; that, as the constitution of the United States, vests in the States, and not in Congress, the power to legislate for the extradition of fugitives from labor, to repeal and entirely abrogate the fugitive slave law; to restrict slavery to those States in which it exists; to prohibit the admission of any more slave States into the Union; to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; to exclude slavery from all the territories over which the general government has exclusive jurisdiction; and to resist the acquirements of any more Territories unless the practice of slavery therein forever shall have been prohibited.

It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honor of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that. I have here stated my purpose according to my official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.

Do you think it's a good idea to be sarcastic about slavery?

I free slaves because I believe we are all created equal. I just can't think of anything that has a higher purpose than putting value on human life.

Abolition seemed a fantasy when Frederick Douglass called for all slaves to be released.

Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.

The two most important documents affecting the destiny of America are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Both these immortal papers relate primarily to the freedom of the individual.

In every man's mind the good seeds of liberty are planted, and he who brings his fellow down so low, as to make him contented with a condition of slavery, commits the highest crime against God and man. Brethren, your oppressors aim to do this. They endeavor to make you as much like brutes as possible. When they have blinded the eyes of your mind-when they have embittered the sweet waters of the light which shines from the word of God-then, and not till then has American slavery done its perfect work.

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

In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time.

Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom.

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

Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? - "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free."

If the Tenth Amendment were still taken seriously, most of the federal government's present activities would not exist. That's why no one in Washington ever mentions it.

So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished.

Who freed the slaves? To the extent that they were ever u2018freed,' they were freed by the Thirteenth Amendment, which was authored and pressured into existence not by Lincoln but by the great emancipators nobody knows, the abolitionists and congressional leaders who created the climate and generated the pressure that goaded, prodded, drove, forced Lincoln into glory by associating him with a policy that he adamantly opposed for at least fifty-four of his fifty-six years of his life.

If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal,' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.

Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered. It was purposely so framed as to give no claim, no sanction to the claim, of property in man. If in its origin slavery had any relation to the government, it was only as the scaffolding to the magnificent structure, to be removed as soon as the building was completed.

I believe that the only possible reason for our being here is to serve in some form or another but that the form is not always readily found or recognized. And I've noticed that those who refuse to serve often wind up as slaves.