It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.

...if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient.

For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own, or other men's opinions? The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others.

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence their character their knowledge reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.