It was intended to put thorns under feet already bleeding; to crush a people already bowed down; to enslave a people already but half free; in a word, it was intended to discourage, dishearten, and drive the free colored people out of the country.
From his autobiography, Douglass describes the oppressive intent of state laws targeting free Black people.
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It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.
The father might be a white man, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves.
The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.
Lincoln was not only a great President, but a GREAT MAN--too great to be small in anything.