Frederick Douglass

It recalled to life my crushed self-respect and my self-confidence, and inspired me with a renewed determination to be A FREEMAN.

Slaves know enough of the rudiments of theology to believe that those go to hell who die slaveholders; and they often fancy such persons wishing themselves back again, to wield the lash.

Grant that slavery is right; grant that the relations of master and slave may innocently exist; and there is not a single outrage which was ever committed against the slave but what finds an apology in the very necessity of the case.

The answer to that view is, that slavery is itself an abuse; that it lives by abuse; and dies by the absence of abuse.

Covey—undignified as it was, and as I fear my narration of it is—was the turning point in my “life as a slave.” It rekindled in my breast the smouldering embers of liberty; it brought up my Baltimore dreams, and revived a sense of my own…

He prefers to encounter a life of trial, however bitter, or death, however terrible, to dragging out his existence under the dominion of these kind masters.

He quits the homes of men for the haunts of wolves.

Whence came the daring spirit necessary to grapple with a man who, eight-and-forty hours before, could, with his slightest word have made me tremble like a leaf in a storm, I do not know; at any rate, I was resolved to fight, and, what was…

It was a treat to my young and gradually opening mind, to behold this elaborate exhibition of wealth, power, and vanity.

He rushes from the praying slaveholder into the paws of the bear.

He leaves the man of the bible, and takes refuge with the man of the tomahawk.

I now forgot my roots, and remembered my pledge to stand up in my own defense.