is--was the turning point in my _"life
as a slave_." It rekindled in my breast the smouldering embers of
liberty; it brought up my Baltimore dreams, and revived a sense of my
own manhood. I was a changed being after that fight. I was _nothing_
before; I WAS A MAN NOW. It recalled to life my crushed self-respect and
my self-confidence, and inspired me with a renewed determination to be
A FREEMAN. A man, without force, is without the essential dignity of
humanity. Human nature is so constituted, that it cannot _honor_ a
helpless man, although it can _pity_ him; and even this it cannot do
long, if the signs of power do not arise.

He can only understand the effect of this combat on my spirit, who has
himself incurred something, hazarded something, in repelling the unjust
and cruel aggressions of a tyrant. Covey was a tyrant, and a cowardly
one, withal. After resisting him, I felt as I had never felt before. It
was a resurrection from the dark and pestiferous tomb of slavery, to
the heaven of comparative freedom. I was no longer a servile coward,
trembling under the frown of a brother worm of the dust, but, my
long-cowed spirit was roused to an attitude of manly independence. I had
reached the point, at which I was _not afraid to die_. This{191} spirit
made me a freeman in _fact_, while I remained a slave in _form_. When
a slave cannot be flogged he is more than half free. He has a domain as
broad as his own manly heart to defend, and he is really _"a power on
earth_." While slaves prefer their lives, with flogging, to instant
death, they will always find Christians enough, like unto Covey, to
accommodate that preference. From this time, until that of my escape
from slavery, I was never fairly whipped. Several attempts were made
to whip me, but they were always unsuccessful. Bruises I did get, as I
shall hereafter inform the reader; but the case I have been describing,
was the end of the brutification to which slavery had subjected me.

The reader will be glad to know why, after I had so grievously offended
Mr. Covey, he did not have me taken in hand by the authorities; indeed,
why the law of Maryland, which assigns hanging to the slave who resists
his master, was not put in force against me; at any rate, why I was
not taken up, as is usual in such cases, and publicly whipped, for an
example to other slaves, and as a means of deterring me from committing
the same offense again. I confess, that the easy manner in which I go