a slave is just a slave until he rises

 

These brief remarka may give you a taste of this man's eloquence.

Frederick Douglas 

Denouncing the Fugitive Slave Law

Here the renowned orator Frederic Douglas provides  a view of the Fugitive Slave Law.

While you continue in the Union, you are as bad as the slaveholder. If you have thus wronged the poor black man, by stripping him of his freedom, how are you going to give evidence of your repentance? Undo what you have done. Do you say that the slave ought not to be free?

 These hands are they not mine? This body is it not mine? 

Again, I am your brother, white as you are. I’m your blood kin. You don’t get rid of me so easily. I mean to hold on to you. 

And in this land of liberty, I’m a slave. 

The twenty six States that blaze forth on your flag, proclaim a compact to return me to bondage if I run away, and keep me in bondage if I submit.

 Wherever I go, under the aegis of your liberty, there I’m a slave. 

If I go to Lexington or Bunker Hill, there I’m a slave, chained in perpetual servitude.

 I may go to your deepest valley, to your highest mountain, I’m still a slave, and the bloodhound may chase me down.