On the recordJanuary 1, 1881
The key to the situation was the four million of slaves; yet the slave who loved us, was hated, and the slaveholder who hated us, was loved.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
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gutenberg.orgFrederick Douglass: “The key to the situation was the four million of slaves; yet the slave who loved us, was hated, and the slaveholder who…”
Editor's note · Context
From his autobiography, reflecting on the paradoxical and self-defeating nature of the Union's early Civil War policy towards enslaved people and slaveholders.
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Jan 1, 1881
It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.
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.
Jan 1, 1881
The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.