In a free State, a master thus complaining without cause, might be told by his ostler: “Sir, I am sorry I cannot please you, but since I have done the best I can and fail to do so, your remedy is to dismiss me.” But here the ostler must listen and tremblingly abide his master’s behest.
In his autobiography, Douglass contrasts the agency of a free worker with the absolute powerlessness of an enslaved person under the master's arbitrary will.
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It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.
It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.
But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.