It is the interest and business of slaveholders to study human nature, with a view to practical results, and many of them attain astonishing proficiency in discerning the thoughts and emotions of slaves.
From his autobiography, Douglass analyzes the psychological tactics employed by slaveholders to maintain control over enslaved people.
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None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.
Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.
They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.