He could issue no warrant on my word, against white persons; and, if I had been killed in the presence of a thousand blacks, their testimony, combined would have been insufficient to arrest a single murderer.
From his autobiography, this passage describes the legal powerlessness of enslaved people and free blacks in the face of white violence.
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More from Frederick Douglass
They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.
To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.
Still another ground of hope I find in the fact that colored men are strong in their gratitude to benefactors, and firm in their political convictions.