Of what avail would be our marble halls if once more they resounded with the crack of the slave whip, the clank of the fetter, and the rattle of chains; if slave auctions were held in front of the halls of justice, and chain-gangs were marched over Pennsylvania avenue to the Long Bridge for the New Orleans market?
Douglass vividly describes the horrors of slavery, emphasizing the moral implications of such a return to oppression.
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We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.
The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need, found himself in the strong protecting arms of his mother.
Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.