Frederick Douglass

If this be parental affection, what is bitter malignity?

I saw in Sandy too deep an insight into human nature, with all his superstition, not to have some respect for his advice; and perhaps, too, a slight gleam or shadow of his superstition had fallen upon me.

Now, if the foregoing be an indication of kindness, what is cruelty?

There can be no peace to the wicked while slavery continues in the land.

He had been to me the good Samaritan, and had, almost providentially, found me, and helped me when I could not help myself; how did I know but that the hand of the Lord was in it?

Grim, cold, and unapproachable by all genial influences from communities without, there it stands; full three hundred years behind the age, in all that relates to humanity and morals.

We were compelled either to beg, or to steal, and we did both.

While this nation is guilty of the enslavement of three millions of innocent men and women, it is as idle to think of having a sound and lasting peace, as it is to think there is no God to take cognizance of the affairs of men.

Instead of quiet, they have produced alarm; instead of peace, they have brought us war; and so it must ever be.

I had a positive aversion to all pretenders to “divination.” It was beneath one of my intelligence to countenance such dealings with the devil, as this power implied.

If there were no other fact descriptive of slavery, than that the slave is dumb, this alone would be sufficient to mark the slave system as a grand aggregation of human horrors.

But ask the slave what is his condition—what his state of mind—what he thinks of enslavement? and you had as well address your inquiries to the silent dead.