Frederick Douglass: “There I was, in the deep woods, sick and emaciated, pursued by a wretch whose character for revolting cruelty beggars…”

Father he might be, and not be husband, and could sell his own child without incurring reproach, if in its veins coursed one drop of African blood.

It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.

But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.

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.