In the national District of Columbia, over which the star-spangled emblem is constantly waving, where orators are ever holding forth on the subject of American liberty, American democracy, American republicanism, there are two slave prisons.
In his autobiography, Douglass exposes the hypocrisy of slavery existing in the nation's capital, a supposed beacon of liberty.
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Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.
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.
For the moment the northern lamb was transformed into a lion, and his roar was terrible.
Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.