Frederick Douglass: “In the midst of these fugitive slave troubles came the book known as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a work of marvelous depth and…”

It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.

It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.

The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.

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