On the recordJanuary 1, 1855
To be a slave-holder is to be a propagandist from necessity; for slavery can only live by keeping down the under-growth morality which nature supplies.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgFrederick Douglass: “To be a slave-holder is to be a propagandist from necessity; for slavery can only live by keeping down the under-growth…”
Editor's note · Context
Douglass argues that slaveholders are compelled to spread their ideology because slavery depends on suppressing natural human morality.
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I looked into this kitchen with peculiar interest, and remembered that it was there I last saw my mother.
Jan 1, 1881
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.