Frederick Douglass

From this monstrous relation there springs an unceasing stream of most revolting cruelties.

To eat the fruit of his own toil, to clothe his person with the work of his own hands, is considered stealing.

He can own nothing, possess nothing, acquire nothing, but what must belong to another.

In law, the slave has no wife, no children, no country, and no home.

He may work him, flog him, hire him out, sell him, and, in certain contingencies, kill him, with perfect impunity.

The law gives the master absolute power over the slave.

A master is one—to speak in the vocabulary of the southern states—who claims and exercises a right of property in the person of a fellow-man.

Goading as have been the cruelties to which I have been subjected—bitter as have been the trials through which I have passed—exasperating as have been, and still are, the indignities offered to my manhood—I find in them no excuse for the…

In consideration of these facts, I feel that I have a right to speak, and to speak strongly.

I shall make use of you as a means of exposing the character of the American church and clergy—and as a means of bringing this guilty nation, with yourself, to repentance.

I intend to make use of you as a weapon with which to assail the system of slavery—as a means of concentrating public attention on the system, and deepening the horror of trafficking in the souls and bodies of men.

Oh! the vocabulary of the damned would not afford a word sufficiently infernal to express your idea of my God-provoking wickedness.