I had very strangely supposed, while in slavery, that few of the comforts, and scarcely any of the luxuries, of life were enjoyed at the north, compared with what were enjoyed by the slaveholders of the south.
Douglass describes his mistaken belief, formed during his enslavement, that the North lacked the comforts and luxuries he associated with Southern slaveholders.
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It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.
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.
My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes.
A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.