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Everybody has asked the question . . . 'What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us!
Frederick Douglass
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Frederick Douglass
Age: 77 †
Born: 1818
Born: February 14
Died: 1895
Died: February 20
Abolitionist
Autobiographer
Businessperson
Caulker
Diplomat
Editor
Film Editor
Journalist
Orator
Politician
Suffragist
Writer
Talbot County
Maryland
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
Frederick Augustus Washington Baly
Fred Bailey
Freddie Bailey
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Mischief
Shall
Negro
Everybody
Played
Nothing
Answer
More quotes by Frederick Douglass
I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity...
Frederick Douglass
It was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of slavery. My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact.
Frederick Douglass
What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.
Frederick Douglass
Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.
Frederick Douglass
Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest.
Frederick Douglass
Mr. Lincoln was not only a great President, but a great man - too great to be small in anything. In his company I was never in any way reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color.
Frederick Douglass
I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.
Frederick Douglass
A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.
Frederick Douglass
In a composite nation like ours, as before the law, there should be no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no white, no black, but common country, common citizenship, equal rights and a common destiny.
Frederick Douglass
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.
Frederick Douglass
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
Frederick Douglass
Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.
Frederick Douglass
This war, disguise it as they may, is virtually nothing more or less than perpetual slavery against universal freedoms.
Frederick Douglass
It is not light that we need, but fire it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
Frederick Douglass
I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.
Frederick Douglass
I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.
Frederick Douglass
We are Americans, speaking the same language, adopting the same customs, holding the same general opinions... and shall rise and fall with Americans.
Frederick Douglass
[...] allowing only ordinary ability and opportunity, we may explain success mainly by one word and that word is WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!! Not transient and fitful effort, but patient, enduring, honest, unremitting and indefatigable work into which the whole heart is put[...] There is no royal road to perfection.
Frederick Douglass
Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever... I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.
Frederick Douglass
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