Though her emancipation came in peace, and ours in war; though hers cost treasure, and ours blood; though hers was the result of a sacred preference, and ours resulted in part from necessity, the motive and mainspring of the respective measures were the same in both.
In his autobiography, Douglass contrasts the methods and costs of British and American emancipation while highlighting their shared underlying moral imperative.
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Old and young, sick and well, were turned loose to the open sky, naked to their enemies.
The old slave quarter that had before sheltered them, and the fields that had yielded them corn, were now denied them.
No people to whom liberty is given, can hold it as firmly and wear it as grandly as those who wrench their liberty from the iron hand of the tyrant.