We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.

Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude.

I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.

I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine.

[John Brown's] zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun... I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave.

It is better to be part of a great whole than to be the whole of a small part.

Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.