A slave seldom thinks of bettering his condition by being sold, and hence he looks upon separation from his native place, with none of the enthusiasm which animates the bosoms of young freemen, when they contemplate a life in the far west, or in some distant country where they intend to rise to wealth and distinction.
From his autobiography, this passage contrasts the enslaved person's dread of forced relocation with the free person's hopeful pursuit of opportunity.
Share
More from Frederick Douglass
In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.
An exceptionally poor and dependent people will be despised by the opulent and despise themselves.
The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.