The second reason was, if possible, still more binding to silence--for publication of details would certainly have put in peril the persons and property of those who assisted.
Douglass details a second crucial reason for his long-held secrecy regarding the specifics of his escape from slavery.
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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.
For the moment the northern lamb was transformed into a lion, and his roar was terrible.
He was called upon not merely to administer the government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.
My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes.