It cuts him off from his Maker, it hides from him the laws of God, and leaves him to grope his way from time to eternity in the dark, under the arbitrary and despotic control of a frail, depraved, and sinful fellow-man.
Douglass describes how slavery severs the enslaved person's connection to God and divine law, subjecting them to the arbitrary will of another human.
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Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.
It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.