They told a tale which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish.
Douglass describes the slave songs as profound expressions of prayer and complaint from souls overwhelmed by bitter anguish, which he only later understood.
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But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.
It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.
It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.
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.