That startling cry of alarm on the banks of the Potomac was but the answering back of the avenging angel to the midnight invasions of Christian slave-traders on the sleeping hamlets of Africa.
This quote draws a parallel between the alarm of the Potomac and the historical injustices faced by Africans.
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The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.
A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.
Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.
We could not but believe that there existed at the South a latent and powerful Union sentiment which would assert itself at last.