Light had penetrated the moral dungeon where I had lain, and I saw the bloody whip for my back, and the iron chain for my feet, and my good kind master, he was the author of my situation.
In his autobiography, Douglass uses vivid imagery to describe his awakening to the harsh realities of slavery and the role of his master in his suffering.
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This was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit, the white man’s power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man.
I believed I should get enough to eat at Covey’s, even if I suffered in other respects, and this to a hungry man is not a prospect to be regarded with indifference.
The laws which determine the destinies of individuals and nations are impartial and eternal.