Frederick Douglass: “He was generally accuser, judge, jury, advocate, and executioner.”

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

It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.

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

We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.