Quote 25
I lived in Master Hugh's family about seven years. (7.1)
Even though Douglass lives as a part of Master Hugh's family, he is in it without being of it. Slaves are inside the household without fully being family members.
Quote 26
The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families,--sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,--leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. (Appendix.1)
In the appendix, Douglass shows his rage at religious hypocrites who preach one thing then do the complete opposite. His main example is all the religious people who preach sermons about the importance of family, then rip apart the families of the slaves they own.
Quote 27
I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion. (2.9)
It was common for people who argued in favor of slavery to say that slaves were happy, pointing to the fact that slaves would often sing while they worked. But Douglass says that this is completely backward: slaves don't sing because they're happy, they sing because they're sad. The songs Douglass is talking about, by the way, are called "sorrow songs," out of which evolved the blues.