Knowledge had come; light had penetrated the moral dungeon where I dwelt; and, behold! there lay the bloody whip, for my back, and here was the iron chain; and my good, kind master, he was the author of my situation.
Douglass describes how the acquisition of knowledge illuminated the brutal reality of his enslavement and the true nature of his master.
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It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.
A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.
We could not but believe that there existed at the South a latent and powerful Union sentiment which would assert itself at last.
Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.