Grant that slavery is right; grant that the relations of master and slave may innocently exist; and there is not a single outrage which was ever committed against the slave but what finds an apology in the very necessity of the case.
From his autobiography, Douglass argues that if slavery is accepted as right, then all its accompanying cruelties become justifiable.
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Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.
I looked into this kitchen with peculiar interest, and remembered that it was there I last saw my mother.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.