It was seldom that a slave, however venerable, was honored with a surname in Maryland, and so completely has the south shaped the manners of the north in this respect that their right to such honor is tardily admitted even now.
From his autobiography, Douglass critiques the dehumanizing practice of denying surnames to enslaved people and notes how this prejudice influenced even northern society.
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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.
His iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk like heavy weights deep into my heart, and stirred up within me a rebellion not soon to be allayed.