Frederick Douglass: “My discontent grew upon me, and I was on the look-out for means of escape.”

Father he might be, and not be husband, and could sell his own child without incurring reproach, if in its veins coursed one drop of African blood.

Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.

He was called upon not merely to administer the government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.

Food to the indolent is poison, not sustenance.