I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember anything"(258). I wondered if I were this man, would I of wanted to remember such a disturbing episode? Douglass's long termed memory can be considered as both a gift and a curse; for to remember such acts must be disturbing and yet to remember also never lets one forget. Douglass had witnessed some unthinkable acts of cruelty, during his life span but managed to use these negativities in a positive way. .
Douglass believes in truth, he has a certain faith in it. If he were to block these memories out he would not be true to himself. "I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence" (273). He uses these memories of his past, of truth, as motivation to become a free man, to escape the making of future dehumanizing memories. He believes in truth, that the truth will set him free from this pain; it will speak for itself. One example is when he read the book The Columbian Orator, it opened up the power of truth. "The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder" (278). He then establishes a hope that the power of truth (his memories) will help emancipate the slaves. For these events influence and inspire his future as a pre-eminent crusader against slavery as a speaker and writer. .
"From my earliest recollection, I date the entertainment of a deep conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace; and in the darkest hours of my career in slavery, this living word of faith and the spirit of hope departed not from me, but remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom" (273). As seen in this quote, Douglass was very assertive. He was a man that believed so strongly in something that he would stop at nothing until it was completed.
