Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 121
men are already gone from us, and in the course of
nature were expected to go from us. They were
for a generation, but the constitution is for ages.
Whatever we may owe to them, we certainly owe
it to ourselves, and to mankind, and to God, to
maintain the truth of our own language, and to
allow no villainy, not even the villainy of holding
men as slaves—which Wesley says is the sum of all
villainies—to shelter itself under a fair-seeming
and virtuous language. We owe it to ourselves
to compel the devil to wear his own garments, and
to make wicked laws speak out their wicked intentions.
Common sense, and common justice,
and sound rules of interpretation, all drive us to
the words of the law for the meaning of the law."