I speak advisedly when I say this,—that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community.
From his autobiography, Douglass asserts that the murder of enslaved or free Black people in Talbot County, Maryland, was not considered a crime by either the legal system or society.
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It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.
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.
We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.
Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.