The overwork, and the brutal chastisements of which I was the victim, combined with that ever-gnawing and soul-devouring thought—“I am a slave—a slave for life—a slave with no rational ground to hope for freedom”—rendered me a living embodiment of mental and physical wretchedness.
From his autobiography, detailing the cumulative psychological and physical torment of his enslavement under Covey.
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Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.
It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.
It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.