"I am not discouraged": Frederick Douglass

“I am not discouraged. The cause is in good hands. God, truth, and humanity are with us, and all things are working for our good. I see cause of hope in all directions—in the movements of our enemies, not less than in those of our friends. The wrath of man is made to praise God. He has declared that he will confound the wisdom of the crafty, and bring to nought the counsels of the ungodly. In the spirit of the age, in the voice of civilization, in the improvements of steam navigation, in every bar of railroad iron, I read the approach of that happy period, when, instead of being called upon to celebrate the emancipation of eight hundred thousand persons in the West Indies, we shall be summoned to rejoice over the downfall of Slavery in our own land.”

—Frederick Douglass, address at Canandaigua, New York, on the anniversary of the West India Emancipation, August 1, 1850