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“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

Source: “West India Emancipation”, speech at Canandaigua, New York, 3 August 1857

Context At a gathering marking emancipation in the British West Indies, months after the Supreme Court's Dred Scott ruling, he argued that freedom had to be demanded and struggled for.

Portrait of Frederick Douglass
Frederick DouglassUnited States · 1818–1895
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