Slavery Quotes by Frederick Douglass

Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.

— Frederick Douglass

A slave is someone who sits down, and waits for someone to free them.

— Frederick Douglass

Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.

— Frederick Douglass

I hear the mournful wail of millions!

— Frederick Douglass

I escaped from slavery and became a leading abolitionist and speaker.

— Frederick Douglass

“most successful one was that of tarring his fence all around; after which, if a slave was caught”

— Frederick Douglass

I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.

— Frederick Douglass

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

— Frederick Douglass

This war, disguise it as they may, is virtually nothing more or less than perpetual slavery against universal freedoms.

— Frederick Douglass

Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.

— Frederick Douglass

Abolition of slavery had been the deepest desire and the great labor of my life

— Frederick Douglass

There is not a man beneath the canopy of Heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

— Frederick Douglass

The Federal Government was never, in its essence, anything but an anti-slavery government.

— Frederick Douglass

I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition was improved, instead of increasing my contentment; it only…

— Frederick Douglass

Experience demonstrates that there may be a wages of slavery only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel…

— 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…

— Frederick Douglass

Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is…

— Frederick Douglass

I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the…

— Frederick Douglass

My great and exceeding joy over these stupendous achievements, especially over the abolition of slavery (which had been the deepest desire and…

— Frederick Douglass

The Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider it purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway?…

— Frederick Douglass

“I speak advisedly when I say this,—that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as…

— Frederick Douglass

“Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me. When I went there, she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted…

— Frederick Douglass

“We are sometimes asked in the name of patriotism to forget the merits of this fearful struggle [the Civil War], and to…

— Frederick Douglass

The Constitutional framers were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did…

— Frederick Douglass

Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered. It was purposely so framed as to…

— Frederick Douglass

From my earliest recollection, I date the entertainment of a deep conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold me…

— Frederick Douglass

John Brown's zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light; his was as…

— Frederick Douglass

I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were…

— Frederick Douglass

“to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental…

— Frederick Douglass

“Thus, when the slave asks for virtuous freedom, the cunning slaveholder, knowing his ignorance, cheats him with a dose of vicious dissipation,…

— Frederick Douglass

“If at any one time of my life more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that…

— Frederick Douglass

“I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character…

— Frederick Douglass

“I may be deemed superstitious, and even egotistical, in regarding this event as a special interposition of divine Providence in my favor.…

— Frederick Douglass

“What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other…

— Frederick Douglass

“I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of the land... I look upon it as the climax…

— Frederick Douglass

I have observed this in my experience of slavery, - that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment,…

— Frederick Douglass

“It is due, however, to my mistress to say of her, that she did not adopt this course of treatment immediately. She…

— Frederick Douglass

“It may, perhaps, be fairly questioned, whether any other portion of the population of the earth could have endured the privations, sufferings…

— Frederick Douglass

Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery…

— Frederick Douglass

Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On…

— Frederick Douglass