When I saw the slave-driver whip a slave-woman, cut the blood out of her neck, and heard her piteous cries, I went away into the corner of the fence, wept and pondered over the mystery.
In his autobiography, Douglass recounts a brutal whipping he witnessed as a child, which deepened his questioning of slavery.
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It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.
A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.
The anti-slavery platform had performed its work, and my voice was no longer needed.
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.