In all the broad lands which the Constitution of the United States overshadows, there is no single spot,—however narrow or desolate,—where a fugitive slave can plant himself and say, “I am safe.” The whole armory of Northern Law has no shield for you.
Douglass highlights the lack of safety for fugitive slaves under the U.S. Constitution, illustrating the perilous nature of their existence.
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His iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk like heavy weights deep into my heart, and stirred up within me a rebellion not soon to be allayed.
True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.