To allow a slave to escape punishment, who has impudently attempted to exculpate himself from unjust charges, preferred against him by some white person, is to be guilty of great dereliction of duty.
Douglass describes the perverse logic of slaveholders who believed it was a dereliction of duty to let a slave escape punishment for perceived impudence.
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A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.
Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.