Frederick Douglass

And yet I could not but feel that I was the victim of something like justice.

The innocent had been taken and the guilty left.

Bolts, bars, and grated windows are not acceptable to freedom-loving people of any color.

They were mere hucksters of the slave produce of Maryland and Virginia--coarse, cruel, and swaggering bullies, whose very breathing was of blasphemy and blood.

Yes, they were the legitimate fruit of slavery, and were second in villainy only to the slaveholders themselves who made such a class possible.

As a class, they were hardened ruffians, made such by nature and by occupation.

I felt as if surrounded by a pack of fiends fresh from perdition.

The fact is, I never saw much use of fighting where there was no reasonable probability of whipping anybody.

It is indeed all over with us; we are surely betrayed,” I thought to myself.

I appealed to the pride of my comrades by telling them that if after having solemnly promised to go, as they had done, they now failed to make the attempt, they would in effect brand themselves with cowardice, and might well sit down, fold…

It was too late to look back, and now was the time to go forward.

Any white man, if he pleased, was authorized to stop a man of color on any road, and examine and arrest him.