Source identified1
Image design Coastal
Read & copy
“Freedom is a priceless boon, but its value is enhanced when accompanied with some of life's comforts.”
Meaning & context
Jacobs distinguishes legal emancipation from the practical conditions that allow newly freed people—especially the elderly and vulnerable—to experience freedom with security and dignity.
Source details
“Savannah Freedmen’s Orphan Asylum,” an appeal published in the Anti-Slavery Reporter, March 2, 1868, represented by Reconstruction 360’s primary-document transcription. The printed appeal is identified as Harriet Jacobs’s and signed “LINDA JACOBS.” The sentence concerns aged freedpeople, poverty and post-emancipation relief during Reconstruction; it is historical advocacy, not a claim that freedom can be reduced to material comfort.