Frederick Douglass: “I warn him that, in such an event, a spirit will go forth in their midst, more to be dreaded than the most appalling…”

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

The anti-slavery platform had performed its work, and my voice was no longer needed.

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

But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.