Frederick Douglass: “There is a bright side to almost every picture of this kind; and ours is no exception to the general rule.”

We could not but believe that there existed at the South a latent and powerful Union sentiment which would assert itself at last.

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.

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.

To make a man a slave was to rob him of moral responsibility.