It was intended to put thorns under feet already bleeding; to crush a people already bowed down; to enslave a people already but half free; in a word, it was intended to discourage, dishearten, and drive the free colored people out of the country.
From his autobiography, Douglass describes the oppressive intent of state laws targeting free Black people.
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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.
Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.
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.