From the public-domain record · 81,371 quotes
Founders, statesmen and world leaders — cited from their collected works.
The figures
They began to put on airs, and talk about the “niggers” taking the country, saying we all ought to be killed; and, being encouraged by the journeymen, they commenced making my condition as hard as they could, by hectoring me around, and…
My fellow-apprentices very soon began to feel it degrading to them to work with me.
Their reason for this, as alleged, was, that if free colored carpenters were encouraged, they would soon take the trade into their own hands, and poor white men would be thrown out of employment.
I expected to have been safe in a land of freedom; but now I was covered with gloom, sunk down to the utmost despair.
A band of pirates never looked more like their father, the devil.
I felt myself surrounded by so many fiends from perdition.
We were resolved to succeed or fail together, after the calamity had befallen us as much as before.
The responsibility of success or failure lay heavily upon me.
Every man stood firm; and at our last meeting, we pledged ourselves afresh, in the most solemn manner, that, at the time appointed, we would certainly start in pursuit of freedom.
With us it was a doubtful liberty at most, and almost certain death if we failed.
In coming to a fixed determination to run away, we did more than Patrick Henry, when he resolved upon liberty or death.
On the other hand, away back in the dim distance, under the flickering light of the north star, behind some craggy hill or snow-covered mountain, stood a doubtful freedom—half frozen—beckoning us to come and share its hospitality.
On the one hand, there stood slavery, a stern reality, glaring frightfully upon us,—its robes already crimsoned with the blood of millions, and even now feasting itself greedily upon our own flesh.
We could see no spot, this side of the ocean, where we could be free.
At times we were almost disposed to give up, and try to content ourselves with our wretched lot; at others, we were firm and unbending in our determination to go.
I talked to them of our want of manhood, if we submitted to our enslavement without at least one noble effort to be free.
I therefore resolved that 1835 should not pass without witnessing an attempt, on my part, to secure my liberty.
I was fast approaching manhood, and year after year had passed, and I was still a slave.
I began, with the commencement of the year, to prepare myself for a final struggle, which should decide my fate one way or the other.
