Frederick Douglass: “But, with the slave, all these mitigating circumstances are wanting.”

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

But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.

His iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk like heavy weights deep into my heart, and stirred up within me a rebellion not soon to be allayed.

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