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Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings

Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings is a compilation of key works by the renowned abolitionist, featuring his powerful speeches and thought-provoking essays. The book provides a glimpse into Douglass's journey from slavery to prominence, highlighting his contributions to the abolitionist movement and his fight for civil rights. more

Author

Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was a renowned orator and writer, born into a slave family in Maryland, USA. He gained his freedom in the mid-19th century through self-education and became one of the leaders of the abolitionist movement. Douglass made significant contributions to the cause of equality and justice in the United States through his incisive speeches and writings, which exposed the cruelty of slavery and inspired countless people to join the abolitionist movement. more

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“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.”

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Book:Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings
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“The crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition, that can be heaped upon us, till custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway.”

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Book:The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799: prepared under the direction of the United States George Washington bicentennial commission and published by authority of Congress
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“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce...”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented . . . no insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth.”

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Author:John Quincy Adams
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“In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in the making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.”

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Book:Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 1: 1832-1858: Library of America #45
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“Slavery is ...an atrocious debasement of human nature.”

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Book:The Works of Benjamin Franklin: Containing Several Political and Historical Tracts Not Included in Any Former Edition, and Many Letters, Official and Private, Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author
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