Let the nation try justice
“When these false reasoners assert that the condition of the emancipated is wretched and deplorable, they tell in part the truth, and I agree with them. ... To my mind, the blame for this condition does not rest upon emancipation, but upon slavery. It is not the result of emancipation, but the defeat of emancipation. It is not the work of the spirit of liberty, but the work of the spirit of bondage, and of the determination of slavery to perpetuate itself, if not under one form, then under another. ...
“In old times when it was asked, ‘How can we abolish slavery?’ the answer was ‘Quit stealing.’ The same is the solution of the Race problem today. The whole thing can be done by simply no longer violating the amendments of the Constitution of the United States, and no longer evading the claims of justice. ... Let the organic law of the land be honestly sustained and obeyed. Let the political parties cease to palter in a double sense and live up to the noble declarations we find in their platforms. Let the statesmen of the country live up to their convictions. In the language of Senator Ingalls: ‘Let the nation try justice and the problem will be solved.’”
—Frederick Douglass, Address to the Metropolitan A. M. E. Church, Washington, D.C., January 9, 1894
