Frederick Douglass: “The colored citizens in those States are virtually disfranchised, the Constitution held in utter contempt and its…”

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

Slavery had no recognition of fathers, as none of families.

That the mother was a slave was enough for its deadly purpose.

The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.