Slavery

• Published in: J19 2021-10, Vol.9 (2), p.371-414
• Main Author: Douglass, Frederick
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Apologies; Memory; Slavery; Theory; Time
• ISSN: 2166-742X; 2166-7438

[...]this impression will in some measure disappear when the object of this book is considered and when it is remembered that while slavery is a thing of only a few years ago and that even the descen-dants of those who suffered its evils and now know little or noth-ing about it either in theory or in practice,2 and further, that the American people from their prepossessions are more likely to for-get too soon than to remember either slavery or its discussions too long, no apology will be needed for giving the subject a somewhat thorough discussion here and now. Events crowd upon each other so rapidly and the flight of time wings its way so swiftly, and memory is generally so defect-ive that the deepest impression made upon it by passing events are soon (def)faced and forgotten; besides this book is to illustrate the progress of the negro in the United States, and there can be no proper sense of such progress which does not take into account the nature of the conditions from which the negro started in the race of civilized life. [...]the negro has been so described, branded and accepted by the American people (as a legitimate subject of slavery.) Superficial men are wont to say that no other people could be enslaved like the negro. [...]again, contemplating the proud Anglo Saxon Race, than whom there is no greater race, as they now appear, no one would imagine that they could have at any time bowed their proud necks to the yoke of slavery, yet, humiliating as the fact may seem to-day, history shows that this great race, whose knowledge, wisdom and power now rock and rule the world as is done by no other nation on the globe, was but a few centuries ago the ignorant and abject slaves of foreign masters.