Frederick Douglass

We knew that if, by extraordinary exertion, a large quantity of work was done in one day, the fact, becoming known to the master, might lead him to require the same amount every day.

The reverend slaveholder could always find something of this sort, to justify him in using the lash several times during the week.

No matter what were the imperfections of the implement broken, or the natural liabilities for breaking, the slave can be whipped for carelessness.

To allow a slave to escape punishment, who has impudently attempted to exculpate himself from unjust charges, preferred against him by some white person, is to be guilty of great dereliction of duty.

Then, he is guilty of impudence, one of the greatest crimes in the social catalogue of southern society.

A mere look, word, or motion, a mistake, accident, or want of power, are all matters for which a slave may be whipped at any time.

A slaveholder, bent on finding fault, will hatch up a dozen a day, if he chooses to do so, and each one of these shall be of a punishable description.

The man, unaccustomed to slaveholding, would be astonished to observe how many foggable offenses there are in the slaveholder’s catalogue of crimes; and how easy it is to commit any one of them, even when the slave least intends it.

He seemed to wish to assure them, that his tears over poor, lost and ruined sinners, and his pity for them, did not reach to the blacks who tilled his fields.

The back of his slave-woman will, in the judgment, be the swiftest witness against him.

Religious slaveholders, like religious persecutors, are ever extreme in their malice and violence.

Exceptions there may be, but this is true of religious slaveholders, as a class.