It is the interest and business of slaveholders to study human nature, with a view to practical results, and many of them attain astonishing proficiency in discerning the thoughts and emotions of slaves.
From his autobiography, Douglass analyzes the psychological tactics employed by slaveholders to maintain control over enslaved people.
Share
More from Frederick Douglass
It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.
The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.
This was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit, the white man’s power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man.
The laws which determine the destinies of individuals and nations are impartial and eternal.