Frederick Douglass

Now, if the foregoing be an indication of kindness, what is cruelty?

There can be no peace to the wicked while slavery continues in the land.

While this nation is guilty of the enslavement of three millions of innocent men and women, it is as idle to think of having a sound and lasting peace, as it is to think there is no God to take cognizance of the affairs of men.

Instead of quiet, they have produced alarm; instead of peace, they have brought us war; and so it must ever be.

If there were no other fact descriptive of slavery, than that the slave is dumb, this alone would be sufficient to mark the slave system as a grand aggregation of human horrors.

But ask the slave what is his condition—what his state of mind—what he thinks of enslavement? and you had as well address your inquiries to the silent dead.

They have been long oppressed; and the same heart that prompts me to plead the cause of the American bondman, makes it impossible for me not to sympathize with the oppressed of all lands.

No thanks to the slaveholder, nor to slavery, that the vivacious captive may sometimes dance in his chains; his very mirth in such circumstances stands before God as an accusing angel against his enslaver.

It only proves to my mind, that though slavery is armed with a thousand stings, it is not able entirely to kill the elastic spirit of the bondman.

The true reason or explanation of the matter is this: there is the greatest unanimity of opinion among the white population in the south in favor of the policy of keeping the slave in ignorance.

Education being among the menacing influences, and, perhaps, the most dangerous, is, therefore, the most cautiously guarded against.

The great mass of slaveholders look upon education among the slaves as utterly subversive of the slave system.