On the recordJanuary 1, 1855
The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one-sixth of the population of democratic America is denied its privileges by the law of the land.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgFrederick Douglass: “The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one-sixth of the population of democratic America is denied its…”
Editor's note · Context
Douglass exposes the hypocrisy of a democratic nation that legally denied the institution of marriage to a significant portion of its population.
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Jan 1, 1881
The father might be a white man, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves.
Jan 1, 1881
Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.