To understand the emotion which swelled my heart as I clasped this money, realizing that I had no master who could take it from me--that it was mine--that my hands were my own, and could earn more of the precious coin--one must have been in some sense himself a slave.
Reflecting on his first earnings as a free man, Douglass describes the profound emotional significance of economic independence after escaping slavery.
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The laws which determine the destinies of individuals and nations are impartial and eternal.
The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need, found himself in the strong protecting arms of his mother.
True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.
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.