Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.

[Y]our national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.

I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.

A man's character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.