Frederick Douglass, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The law makes it plain, if a man will read it honestly. A master is one who claims and exercises a right of property in the person of a fellow-man — with the force of law behind him and the sanction of southern religion beside him.1 The slave is a human being divested of all rights, reduced to the level of a brute, a mere chattel in the eye of the law — that word meaning property that can be bought and sold, as a horse or a swine — placed beyond the circle of human brotherhood, his name, which the recording angel may have enrolled in heaven among the blest, impiously inserted in a master's ledger alongside horses, sheep, and swine.2
In law, he has no wife, no children, no country, and no home. But the ledger entry does not capture the full mechanism. Slavery in the United States is the granting of that power by which one man exercises and enforces a right of property in the body and soul of another.3 The slave's own good, his conscience, his intellect, his affections — all are set aside by the master.
Whatever of comfort is necessary to him for his body or soul that is inconsistent with his being property is carefully wrested from him, not only by public opinion, but by the law of the country.4 God has given him an intellect; the slaveholder declares it shall not be cultivated. I have seen what this means in the flesh, not merely in the statute.
At the valuation of an estate, horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children all hold the same rank in the scale of social existence, all subjected to the same narrow inspection to ascertain their value in gold and silver — the only standard of worth the slaveholder applies.5 Personality swallowed up in the sordid idea of property. Manhood lost in chattelhood.
And I will say this to anyone who would dilute the word: intemperance is called slavery, the want of a vote is called slavery, hard labor is called slavery — and I do not wish to obstruct any man's political freedom, nor to minimize the evil of intemperance.6 But the term is abused when it is identified with what it is not, and that abuse detracts from the horror with which genuine slavery ought to be contemplated.
The condition I am describing is not a metaphor. It is the condition of the brute beast, fixed by law, enforced by the lash, and recorded in a ledger — and I was in that ledger.
A master is one—to speak in the vocabulary of the southern states—who claims and exercises a right of property in the person of a fellow-man. This he does with the force of the law and the sanction of southern religion.My Bondage and My Freedom
The slave is a human being, divested of all rights—reduced to the level of a brute—a mere 'chattel' in the eye of the law—placed beyond the circle of human brotherhood—cut off from his kind—his name, which the 'recording angel' may have enrolled in heaven, among the blest, is impiously inserted in a master's ledger, with horses, sheep, and swine.My Bondage and My Freedom
Slavery in the United States is the granting of that power by which one man exercises and enforces a right of property in the body and soul of another.My Bondage and My Freedom
Whatever of comfort is necessary to him for his body or soul that is inconsistent with his being property, is carefully wrested from him, not only by public opinion, but by the law of the country.My Bondage and My Freedom
Horses and men—cattle and women—pigs and children—all holding the same rank in the scale of social existence; and all subjected to the same narrow inspection, to ascertain their value in gold and silver—the only standard of worth applied by slaveholders to slaves!My Bondage and My Freedom
It is common in this country to distinguish every bad thing by the name of slavery. Intemperance is slavery; to be deprived of the right to vote is slavery, says one; to have to work hard is slavery, says another.My Bondage and My Freedom