It was a great thing to achieve American independence when we numbered three millions, but it was a greater thing to save this country from dismemberment and ruin when it numbered thirty millions.
Douglass compares the achievement of American independence to the greater challenge of preserving the Union during the Civil War.
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My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes.
We could not but believe that there existed at the South a latent and powerful Union sentiment which would assert itself at last.
He was called upon not merely to administer the government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.