The insult was keenly felt by my white friends, but to me, it was common, expected, and therefore, a thing of no great consequence, whether I went in the cabin or in the steerage.
Douglass reflects on a discriminatory incident, noting that while his white companions were outraged, he found the prejudice to be a familiar and expected part of his life.
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More from Frederick Douglass
Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.
We could not but believe that there existed at the South a latent and powerful Union sentiment which would assert itself at last.
True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.
It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.