I will not censure her harshly; she cannot censure me, for she knows I speak but the truth, and have acted in my opposition to slavery, just as she herself would have acted, in a reverse of circumstances.
Douglass expresses a nuanced view of his former mistress, acknowledging her complicity in slavery while also suggesting a shared human response to oppression.
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A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.
Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.