To talk of kindness entering into a relation in which one party is robbed of wife, of children, of his hard earnings, of home, of friends, of society, of knowledge, and of all that makes this life desirable, is most absurd, wicked, and preposterous.
Douglass, in his autobiography, refutes the notion that kindness can exist within the inherently cruel and dehumanizing institution of slavery.
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More from Frederick Douglass
He was called upon not merely to administer the government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.
We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.