I saw through the attempt to keep me in ignorance; I saw that slaveholders would have gladly made me believe that they were merely acting under the authority of God, in making a slave of me, and in making slaves of others; and I treated them as robbers and deceivers.
Douglass recounts in his autobiography how he perceived the slaveholders' attempts to justify their actions through religious authority and his subsequent defiance.
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The laws which determine the destinies of individuals and nations are impartial and eternal.
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