Frederick Douglass: “The overseer is generally accuser, judge, jury, advocate and executioner.”

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.

We could not but believe that there existed at the South a latent and powerful Union sentiment which would assert itself at last.

The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need, found himself in the strong protecting arms of his mother.

The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.