Women—white women, I mean—are IDOLS at the south, not WIVES, for the slave women are preferred in many instances; and if these idols but nod, or lift a finger, woe to the poor victim: kicks, cuffs and stripes are sure to follow.
Douglass critiques the elevated, almost worshipped status of white women in the South, which he argues enabled their unchecked cruelty towards enslaved people.
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Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.
My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.