Frederick Douglass

The span of human life is too short for the repetition of events which occur at the distance of fifty years.

But now that the results of the war had changed all this, I had for several years determined to return to my old home upon the first opportunity.

While slavery continued, of course this very natural desire could not be safely gratified; for my presence among slaves was dangerous to the public peace, and could no more be tolerated than could a wolf among sheep, or fire in a magazine.

By this current he was a master, and I a slave; but now our lives were verging towards a point where differences disappear, where even the constancy of hate breaks down, where the clouds of pride, passion, and selfishness vanish before the…

We had both been flung, by powers that did not ask our consent, upon a mighty current of life, which we could neither resist nor control.

Our courses had been determined for us, not by us.

He was to me no longer a slaveholder either in fact or in spirit, and I regarded him as I did myself, a victim of the circumstances of birth, education, law, and custom.

The conditions were favorable for remembrance of all his good deeds, and generous extenuation of all his evil ones.

But now that slavery was destroyed, and the slave and the master stood upon equal ground, I was not only willing to meet him, but was very glad to do so.

It would have been an invitation to the auction-block and the slave whip.

Had I been asked in the days of slavery to visit this man, I should have regarded the invitation as one to put fetters on my ankles and handcuffs on my wrists.

I, on my part, had traveled through the length and breadth of this country and of England, holding up this conduct of his in common with that of other slaveholders to the reprobation of all men who would listen to my words.