The Public Record
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He was "the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century".
The supper was soon ready, and though I have feasted since, with honorables, lord mayors and aldermen, over the sea, my supper on ash cake and cold water, with Sandy, was the meal, of all my life, most sweet to my taste, and now most vivid…
The rich planter can afford to learn politics in the parlor, and to dispense with religion altogether.
They have been long oppressed; and the same heart that prompts me to plead the cause of the American bondman, makes it impossible for me not to sympathize with the oppressed of all lands.
No thanks to the slaveholder, nor to slavery, that the vivacious captive may sometimes dance in his chains; his very mirth in such circumstances stands before God as an accusing angel against his enslaver.
I saw Jim ironed, in the cart, to be carried to Easton for sale—pinioned like a yearling for the slaughter.
It only proves to my mind, that though slavery is armed with a thousand stings, it is not able entirely to kill the elastic spirit of the bondman.
The true reason or explanation of the matter is this: there is the greatest unanimity of opinion among the white population in the south in favor of the policy of keeping the slave in ignorance.
Sandy’s wife was not behind him in kindness—both seemed to esteem it a privilege to succor me; for, although I was hated by Covey and by my master, I was loved by the colored people, because they thought I was hated for my knowledge, and…
The politician keeps away, because the people have no votes, and the preacher keeps away, because the people have no money.
Education being among the menacing influences, and, perhaps, the most dangerous, is, therefore, the most cautiously guarded against.
The great mass of slaveholders look upon education among the slaves as utterly subversive of the slave system.
That day, in the woods, I would have exchanged my manhood for the brutehood of an ox.