Frederick Douglass: “We had both been flung, by powers that did not ask our consent, upon a mighty current of life, which we could neither…”

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

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

Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.

I looked into this kitchen with peculiar interest, and remembered that it was there I last saw my mother.