|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: the persons and property of those who assisted. Murder itself was
not more sternly and certainly punished in the State of Maryland
than that of aiding and abetting the escape of a slave.
Many colored men, for no other crime than that of giving aid to
a fugitive slave, have, like Charles T. Torrey, perished in prison.
The abolition of slavery in my native State and throughout the country,
and the lapse of time, render the caution hitherto observed
no longer necessary. But even since the abolition of slavery,
I have sometimes thought it well enough to baffle curiosity
by saying that while slavery existed there were good reasons
for not telling the manner of my escape, and since slavery
|