Frederick Douglass

It is precious both to the pauper and to the prince, to the slave and to his master; and yet I believe there was not one among us who would not rather have been shot down than pass away life in hopeless bondage.

Life is not lightly regarded by men of sane minds.

The life which he has may be lost, and the liberty which he seeks may not be gained.

All that he has is at stake, and even that which he has not is at stake also.

Upon either side we saw grim death, assuming a variety of horrid shapes.

On the one hand stood slavery, a stern reality glaring frightfully upon us, with the blood of millions in its polluted skirts, terrible to behold, greedily devouring our hard earnings and feeding it upon our flesh.

The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.

The case sometimes, to our excited visions, stood thus: At every gate through which we had to pass we saw a watchman; at every ferry a guard; on every bridge a sentinel, and in every wood a patrol or slave-hunter.

We had heard of Canada, then the only real Canaan of the American bondman, simply as a country to which the wild goose and the swan repaired at the end of winter to escape the heat of summer, but not as the home of man.

We knew of no spot this side the ocean where we could be safe.

Then, too, we knew that merely reaching a free state did not free us, that wherever caught we could be returned to slavery.

Slaveholders sought to impress their slaves with a belief in the boundlessness of slave territory, and of their own limitless power.