Even now an American abroad is pointed out in the crowd, as coming from a land where men gain their fortunes by “the blood of souls,” from a land of slave markets, of blood-hounds, and slave-hunters; and, in some circles, such a man is shunned altogether, as a moral pest.
From his autobiography, Douglass describes how the international community views Americans due to the nation's embrace of slavery.
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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.
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 looked into this kitchen with peculiar interest, and remembered that it was there I last saw my mother.
It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.