I say for a time, because the fatal poison of irresponsible power, and the natural influence of slavery customs, were not long in making a suitable impression on the gentle and loving disposition of my excellent mistress.
In his autobiography, Douglass describes how the institution of slavery corrupted the initially kind nature of his mistress.
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More from Frederick Douglass
It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.
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.
True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.