Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
l6o LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
years ago, to force the accursed system of slavery
upon the soil of Kansas, the enactment of the
Fugitive Slave Bill, the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, the Dred Scott decision. I look
upon it as one more shocking development of
that moral weakness in high places which has
attended the conflict between the spirit of liberty
and the spirit of slavery from the beginning, and
I venture to predict that it will be so regarded by
after-coming generations.
" Far down the ages, when men shall wish to
inform themselves as to the real state of liberty,
law, religion, and civilization in the United States
at this juncture of our history, they will overhaul
the proceedings of the Supreme Court, and read
the decision declaring the Civil Rights Bill unconstitutional
and void.
" From this they will learn more than from
many volumes, how far we have advanced, in this
year of grace, from barbarism toward civilization.
" Fellow-citizens, among the great evils which
now stalk abroad in our land, the one, I think,
which most threatens to undermine and destroy
the foundations of our free institutions is the great
and apparently increasing want of respect entertained
for those to whom are committed the responsibility
and the duty of administering our
government. On this point I think all good men
must agree, and against this evil I trust you feel,