Oration, Delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester · 1852 pamphlet, p. 18

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue. the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding.-- There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

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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