While I heard of numerous murders committed by slaveholders on the Eastern Shores of Maryland, I never knew a solitary instance in which a slaveholder was either hung or imprisoned for having murdered a slave.
From his autobiography, Douglass reflects on the legal immunity slaveholders enjoyed for murdering enslaved people in Maryland.
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But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.
Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.
The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.