Oration, Delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester · 1852 pamphlet, p. 10

They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final," not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times.

Frederick Douglass · 5 July 1852
Lee, Mann & Co., Rochester, 1852. Reading text from Literature in Context (University of Virginia), checked against the Rochester pamphlet where corrections are recorded; verse and source pagination retained.
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