These two men were both advanced in years; there were the silver locks of the master, and the bald and toil-worn brow of the slave--superior and inferior here, powerful and weak here, but equals before God.
Describing the whipping of an elderly enslaved man, Douglass reflects on the moral paradox of human hierarchy versus divine equality.
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He was called upon not merely to administer the government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.
Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.