The slave was robbed by his master of all his earnings, above what was required for his bare physical necessities, and the white laboring man was robbed by the slave system, of the just results of his labor, because he was flung into competition with a class of laborers who worked without wages.
Douglass details the economic mechanisms by which both enslaved black people and poor white laborers were exploited under the slave system.
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I believed I should get enough to eat at Covey’s, even if I suffered in other respects, and this to a hungry man is not a prospect to be regarded with indifference.
The anti-slavery platform had performed its work, and my voice was no longer needed.
I looked into this kitchen with peculiar interest, and remembered that it was there I last saw my mother.