Frederick Douglass

God created both, and made us separate beings.

The morality of the act I dispose of as follows: I am myself; you are yourself; we are two distinct persons, equal persons.

Mean and contemptible as is all this, it is in keeping with the character which the life of a slaveholder is calculated to produce.

From that time, I resolved that I would some day run away.

I was not satisfied with this theory, which made God responsible for slavery, for it pained me greatly, and I have wept over it long and often.

I am in the wood, buried in its somber gloom, and hushed in its solemn silence; hid from all human eyes; shut in with nature and nature’s God, and absent from all human contrivances.

To be a restraint upon cruelty and vice, public opinion must emanate from a humane and virtuous community.

When I saw the slave-driver whip a slave-woman, cut the blood out of her neck, and heard her piteous cries, I went away into the corner of the fence, wept and pondered over the mystery.

The very first mental effort that I now remember on my part, was an attempt to solve the mystery—why am I a slave? and with this question my youthful mind was troubled for many days, pressing upon me more heavily at times than others.

My master, who I did not venture to hope would protect me as a man, had even now refused to protect me as his property; and had cast me back, covered with reproaches and bruises, into the hands of a stranger to that mercy which was the…

I embraced the golden opportunity, took the morning tide at the flood, and a free man, young, active, and strong, is the result.

Trying, however, as they were, and gloomy as was the prospect, thanks be to the Most High, who is ever the God of the oppressed, at the moment which was to determine my whole earthly career, His grace was sufficient; my mind was made up.