Frederick Douglass: “It becomes us to test the truth of that assertion by the light of reason, and by appeals to indisputable facts.”

Slavery had no recognition of fathers, as none of families.

Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.

It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.

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