She was nevertheless a slave--a slave for life--a slave in the hands of strangers; and in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren, divided like so many sheep, without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word as to their or her own destiny.
Douglass laments the ultimate fate of his grandmother, emphasizing her complete lack of control over her own life and the separation of her family under slavery.
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For the moment the northern lamb was transformed into a lion, and his roar was terrible.
We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.