" I am confident that it is essentially true in all its statements;
that nothing has been set down in malice, nothing exaggerated, nothing
drawn from the imagination; that it comes short of the reality, rather
than overstates a single fact in regard to SLAVERY AS IT IS. The
experience of FREDERICK DOUGLASS, as a slave, was not a peculiar one;
his lot was not especially a hard one; his case may be regarded as a
very fair specimen of the treatment of slaves in Maryland, in which
State it is conceded that they are better fed and less cruelly treated
than in Georgia, Alabama, or Louisiana. Many have suffered incomparably
more, while very few on the plantations have suffered less, than
himself. Yet how deplorable was his situation! what terrible
chastisements were inflicted upon his person! what still more shocking
outrages were perpetrated upon his mind! with all his noble powers and
sublime aspirations, how like a brute was he treated, even by those
professing to have the same mind in them that was in Christ Jesus! to
what dreadful liabilities was he continually subjected! how destitute
of friendly counsel and aid, even in his greatest extremities! how heavy
was the midnight of woe which shrouded in blackness the last ray of
hope, and filled the future with terror and gloom! what longings after
freedom took possession of his breast, and how his misery augmented, in
proportion as he grew reflective and intelligent,--thus demonstrating
that a happy slave is an extinct man! how he thought, reasoned, felt,
under the lash of the driver, with the chains upon his limbs! what
perils he encountered in his endeavors to escape from his horrible doom!
and how signal have been his deliverance and preservation in the midst
of a nation of pitiless enemies!
This Narrative contains many affecting incidents, many passages of great
eloquence and power; but I think the most thrilling one of them all
is the description DOUGLASS gives of his feelings, as he stood
soliloquizing respecting his fate, and the chances of his one day being
a freeman, on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay--viewing the receding
vessels as they flew with their white wings before the breeze, and
apostrophizing them as animated by the living spirit of freedom.
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