Oppression makes a wise man mad.

Poverty, ignorance and degradation are the combined evils, these constitute the social disease of the free colored people of the US.

Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither.

To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.

The relation between the white and colored people of this country is the great, paramount, imperative, and all-commanding question for this age and nation to solve.

Without a struggle, there can be no progress.

I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.