On the recordJanuary 1, 1845
Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgFrederick Douglass: “Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother.”
Editor's note · Context
In his autobiography, Douglass urges abolitionists not to inadvertently assist slaveholders by revealing the methods of escape for enslaved people.
Share
More from Frederick Douglass
Jan 1, 1881
The father might be a white man, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves.
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.
Jan 1, 1881
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.