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What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: A day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustices and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

Frederick Douglass

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Frederick Douglass
Age: 77 †
Born: 1818
Born: February 14
Died: 1895
Died: February 20
Abolitionist
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Talbot County
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Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
Frederick Augustus Washington Baly
Fred Bailey
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More quotes by Frederick Douglass

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Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. Better even to die free than to live slaves.
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Right is of no sex, truth is of no color.
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Neither we, nor any other people, will ever be respected till we respect ourselves and we will never respect ourselves till we have the means to live respectfully.
Frederick Douglass
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I ask you...to adopt the principles proclaimed by yourselves, by your revolutionary fathers, and by the old bell in Independence Hall.
Frederick Douglass
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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
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The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance.
Frederick Douglass
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Allow us the dignity to fight for our own freedom
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The opposite of compromise is character.
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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.
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Without Struggle There Is No Success
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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.
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The soul that is within me no man can degrade.
Frederick Douglass
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Money is the measure of morality, and the success or failure of slavery as a money-making system, determines with many whether...it should be maintained or abolished.
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In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.
Frederick Douglass
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We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men.
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[John Brown's] zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun... I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave.
Frederick Douglass
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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 shelter under…which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection
Frederick Douglass
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I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.
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It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
Frederick Douglass
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Civil war was not a mere strife for territory and dominion, but a contest of civilization against barbarism.
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