I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed.
Douglass describes the profound despair he experienced as a slave, revealing that only the hope of freedom prevented him from taking his own life.
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The laws which determine the destinies of individuals and nations are impartial and eternal.
Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.
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.