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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To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.
The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.
They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.