On the recordJanuary 1, 1881
He who can say to his fellow-man, “You shall serve me or starve,” is a master, and his subject is a slave.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgFrederick Douglass: “He who can say to his fellow-man, “You shall serve me or starve,” is a master, and his subject is a slave.”
Editor's note · Context
From his autobiography, Douglass offers a stark definition of mastery and slavery, asserting that economic coercion, the power to dictate survival, constitutes the essence of the relationship.
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The father might be a white man, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves.
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It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.