Grant that slavery is right; grant that the relations of master and slave may innocently exist; and there is not a single outrage which was ever committed against the slave but what finds an apology in the very necessity of the case.
From his autobiography, Douglass argues that if slavery is accepted as right, then all its accompanying cruelties become justifiable.
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More from Frederick Douglass
Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.
We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.
The anti-slavery platform had performed its work, and my voice was no longer needed.
The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.