Frederick Douglass

It is perfectly sound; and, if slavery be right, Sabbath schools for teaching slaves to read the bible are wrong, and ought to be put down.

The peace of slavery would be disturbed; slave rule would be endangered.

If the slaves learnt to read, they would learn something else, and something worse.

The plea for this outrage was then, as it is now and at all times—the danger to good order.

Michael’s, like slaveholders elsewhere, would always prefer to see the slaves engaged in degrading sports, rather than to see them acting like moral and accountable beings.

I early began to address my companions on the subject of education, and the advantages of intelligence over ignorance, and, as far as I dared, I tried to show the agency of ignorance in keeping men in slavery.

You may hurl a man so low, beneath the level of his kind, that he loses all just ideas of his natural position; but elevate him a little, and the clear conception of rights arises to life and power, and leads him onward.

Give him a bad master, and he aspires to a good master; give him a good master, and he wishes to become his own master.

Beat and cuff your slave, keep him hungry and spiritless, and he will follow the chain of his master like a dog; but, feed and clothe him well—work him moderately—surround him with physical comfort—and dreams of freedom intrude.

The freedom from bodily torture and unceasing labor, had given my mind an increased sensibility, and imparted to it greater activity.

I was about as hard to please by a master, as a master is by slave.

I was no longer the poor scape-goat that I was when at Covey’s, where every wrong thing done was saddled upon me, and where other slaves were whipped over my shoulders.