On the recordJanuary 1, 1881
The key to the situation was the four million of slaves; yet the slave who loved us, was hated, and the slaveholder who hated us, was loved.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgFrederick Douglass: “The key to the situation was the four million of slaves; yet the slave who loved us, was hated, and the slaveholder who…”
Editor's note · Context
From his autobiography, reflecting on the paradoxical and self-defeating nature of the Union's early Civil War policy towards enslaved people and slaveholders.
Share
More from Frederick Douglass
Jan 1, 1881
Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.
Jan 1, 1881
His iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk like heavy weights deep into my heart, and stirred up within me a rebellion not soon to be allayed.
Jan 1, 1881
The laws which determine the destinies of individuals and nations are impartial and eternal.
Jan 1, 1881
It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.