A freeman cannot understand why the slave-master’s shadow is bigger, to the slave, than the might and majesty of a free state; but when he reflects that the slave knows more about the slavery of his master than he does of the might and majesty of the free state, he has the explanation.
Douglass explains why the immediate, known threat of a former master can overshadow the abstract promise of freedom in a new state for an escaped slave.
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The vote of the colored man, formerly beaten down and stamped out by intimidation, is now revived, sought, and defended by powerful allies, and this from no transient sentiment of the moment, but from the permanent laws controlling the…
They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.