Howsoever the slaveholder may allow himself to act toward his slave, and, whatever cruelty he may deem it wise, for example’s sake, or for the gratification of his humor, to inflict, he cannot, in the absence of all provocation, look with pleasure upon the bleeding wounds of a defenseless slave-woman.
Douglass explores the complex psychology of slaveholders, suggesting that even they may not inherently enjoy inflicting suffering without provocation.
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More from Frederick Douglass
Lincoln was not only a great President, but a GREAT MAN--too great to be small in anything.
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.
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.
Father he might be, and not be husband, and could sell his own child without incurring reproach, if in its veins coursed one drop of African blood.