Frederick Douglass: “It was truly a matter of life and death with us.”

Covey succeeded in breaking me--in body, soul, and spirit.

The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need, found himself in the strong protecting arms of his mother.

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.

Guilty or not guilty, to be accused was to be sure of a flogging.