The case sometimes, to our excited visions, stood thus: At every gate through which we had to pass we saw a watchman; at every ferry a guard; on every bridge a sentinel, and in every wood a patrol or slave-hunter.
Describing the pervasive sense of surveillance and danger that enslaved people imagined or faced when contemplating escape.
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It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.
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 was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.