The American people have this lesson to learn: That where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
Douglass warns that societal injustices lead to a breakdown of safety and security for all.
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More from Frederick Douglass
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.
The father might be a white man, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves.
It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.
Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.