With men so few and odds against him so great, few captains ever surpassed him in achievements, some of which seem too disproportionate for belief, and yet no voice has yet called them in question.
Douglass praises John Brown's exceptional military skill, noting his disproportionate achievements despite being vastly outnumbered, which remain unchallenged.
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Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.
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.
It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.