Frederick Douglass: First Editorial of the North Star

Essential Quotes

“It has long been our anxious wish to see, in this slave-holding, slave-trading, and negro-hating land, a printing-press and paper, permanently established, under the complete control and direction of the immediate victims of slavery and oppression.”

“It is evident we must be our own representatives and advocates, not exclusively, but peculiarly—not distinct from, but in connection with our white friends.”

“Nine years ago, as most of our readers are aware, we were held as a slave, shrouded in the midnight ignorance of that infernal system—sunken in the depths of servility and degradation—registered with four footed beasts and creeping things—regarded as property.… By a singular combination of circumstances we finally succeeded in escaping from the grasp of the man who claimed us as his property.”