to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? -- The third question to be addressed by this speech is perhaps the easiest for Douglass to handle. Logically, it cannot be denied. Who can refute that men have an innate right to liberty when they have gathered to celebrate a declaration of independence?