Douglass also wanted to infuriate his northern audience by relating how slaveholders punished slaves. A Northerner with any sense of justice would be furious that it was not considered wrong to whip a slave “till [they were] literally covered with blood” (Douglass 4) nor was it considered a crime to kill a slave. Holders and overseers justified severely whipping their slaves because “it [was] the duty of a master … to whip a slave, to remind him of his master’s authority” (46). Master whipped slaves for the “smallest offenses to prevent the commission of larger ones” (46). Slaveholders would kill a slave that became “unmanageable,” (14) to avert other slaves from “copying the example” (14). Douglass detailed these horrific examples of punishment to incense the northern white reader with the knowledge that slaveholders punished slaves in advance of any wrongdoing, whipped them almost to the brink of death, and murdered without it being considered “treated as a crime by the cour!

Douglass uses family relationships, starting with his own birth, to gain the compassion of his target audience. He never knew the identity of his father, but it was “whispered” (Douglass 2) that it was his master. Douglass mentions this to demonstrate how the “master in [many] cases, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father” (2). This was so commonplace that it was “by law established that the children of women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mother” (2). This meant that these bastard children were slaves despite their paternal heritage because their mother was a slave. The effect of this revelation was to shock and offend the morals of the conservative northern whites. Northern society scorned people in adulterous and interracial relationships. By portraying these Southerners as immoral and adulterous, Douglass wanted to cultivate in his audience a damaging opinion of southern slaveholders (Quarles ix).

Combining all the ways that Douglass sought to affect his northern audience’s opinion of southern slaveholders, he hoped to give his readers a glimpse into the true character of southern slaveholders and the institution of slavery itself. Douglass understood that racism was also prevalent in the north, so his intent was not trying to achieve equal rights but basic human rights. Douglass hoped to gain compassion for those still held in slavery by relating his own experiences: being separated from his mother as an infant and not knowing his father’s identity; being held in lesser value than animals; and being brutally beaten and possibly killed without it being thought a crime.

r” (31). His masters had more than an adequate supply of food, he claims, but would rather it “lay moldering” (31) than give it to the slaves. Not only is this more evidence of the cruel and selfish nature of slaveholders, but

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