If any of these three millions find for themselves companions, and prove themselves honest, upright, virtuous persons to each other, yet in these cases—few as I am bound to confess they are—the virtuous live in constant apprehension of being torn asunder by the merciless men-stealers that claim them as their property.
Douglass vividly describes the constant fear and insecurity faced by enslaved individuals who formed relationships, knowing they could be separated at any moment.
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More from Frederick Douglass
Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.
Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.