This is the passage.....
At one time Mr. Douglass was travelling in the state of Pennsylvania, and was forced, on account of his colour, to ride in the baggage-car, in spite of the fact that he had paid the same price for his passage that the other passengers had paid.
When some of the white passengers went into the baggage-car to console Mr. Douglass, and one of them said to him: “I am sorry, Mr. Douglass, that you have been degraded in this manner,”
Mr. Douglass straightened himself up on the box upon which he was sitting, and replied:
“They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me.”
Funny you should mention that one, because I read that one right before Douglass' autobiography, and it was after reading that anecdote in "Up From Slavery" that I decided to read Douglass' "Narrative". Booker Taliaferro Washington. If more people had listened to that man, we'd be celebrating his birthday instead of Dr. King's, and MLK would have likely lived to a ripe old age. The guy started with nothing and in 20 years had put together an educational dynamo that would be worth $1 Billion dollars in today's money. What an amazing man! He probably would've agreed with me that the founders meant born of two citizen parents for NBC qualification to the presidency; his logical skills were impeccable. ;)