Slaves were expected to sing as well as to work. A silent slave was not liked, either by masters or overseers.

My great and exceeding joy over these stupendous achievements, especially over the abolition of slavery (which had been the deepest desire and the great labor of my life), was slightly tinged with a feeling of sadness.

A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

There are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers , but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.