How we cite our quotes: (Sentence)
Quote #1
But all this prejudice sinks into insignificance in my mind, when compared with the enormous iniquity of the system which is its cause—the system that sold my four sisters and my brothers into bondage—and which calls in its priests to defend it even from the Bible! The slaveholding ministers preach up the divine right of the slaveholders to property in their fellow-men. (30-31)
So prejudice is bad, says Douglass. But it's not as bad as slavery. They're not even in the same ballpark of bad. Slavery may be the cause of prejudice, but make no mistake, it's way worse. Slavery is so bad, says Douglass, that slaveholders have to get their ministers to constantly say it's not.
Pro tip: If you constantly have to talk about how not really all that bad something is, it might be, uh, bad.
Quote #3
"Look at your hard, horny hands—see how nicely they are adapted to the labor you have to perform! Look at our delicate fingers, so exactly fitted for our station, and see how manifest it is that God designed us to be His thinkers, and you the workers—Oh! the wisdom of God!" (38-39)
People love to blame their own prejudices on God, a point Douglass makes in this speech and in many other places in his writings.
God designed slavery? To quote our beloved Holden Caulfield, Jesus would've probably puked at this idea.