In the Narrative, Douglass shows slaveholding to be damaging not only to the slaves themselves, but to slave owners as well. The corrupt and irresponsible power that slave owners enjoy over their slaves has a detrimental effect on the slave owners' own moral health.The following line provides evidence that enslaved persons were treated violently: My master sent me away, because there existed against me a very great prejudice in the community, and he feared I might be killed.
