Thread by @PubliusBooks

“Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed.”
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#FrederickDouglass

“Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men.”
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#FrederickDouglass

“They were great men too — great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men.”
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#FrederickDouglass

“The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration.”
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#FrederickDouglass

“They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.”
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#FrederickDouglass

“They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect.”
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“He who will...lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.”7

“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.”
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#FrederickDouglass

“They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny.”
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#FrederickDouglass

“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.”
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#FrederickDouglass

“They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times.”
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#FrederickDouglass

“How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How unlike the politicians of an hour!”
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#FrederickDouglass

“Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them!”
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#FrederickDouglass