Sickness, adversity, and death may interfere with the plans and purposes of all, but the slave had the added danger of changing homes, in the separations unknown to other men.
Douglass contrasts the universal human experiences of hardship with the unique and profound suffering of enslaved people, who faced forced separations from family and home.
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More from Frederick Douglass
The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.
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.
I wished it was possible I could remain small all my life, knowing that the sooner I grew large the shorter would be my time to remain with them.