My hands had been furnished by nature with something like a solid leather coating, and I had bravely marked out for myself a life of rough labor, suited to the hardness of my hands, as a means of supporting myself and rearing my children.
Douglass reflects on his physical condition after years of labor and his resolve to support his family through hard work in his new life of freedom.
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Father he might be, and not be husband, and could sell his own child without incurring reproach, if in its veins coursed one drop of African blood.
The father might be a white man, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves.
I wished it was possible I could remain small all my life, knowing that the sooner I grew large the shorter would be my time to remain with them.