Frederick Douglass

The trust which Abraham Lincoln had in himself and in the people was surprising and grand, but it was also enlightened and well-founded.

His moral training was against his saying one thing when he meant another.

He had not been taught that treason and perjury were the proof of honor and honesty.

He had not been schooled in the ethics of slavery; his plain life had favored his love of truth.

He calmly and bravely heard the voice of doubt and fear all around him; but he had an oath in heaven, and there was not power enough on earth to make this honest boatman, backwoodsman, and broad-handed splitter of rails evade or violate…

He did not hesitate, he did not doubt, he did not falter; but at once resolved at whatever peril, at whatever cost, the union of the States should be preserved.

He brought his strong common sense, sharpened in the school of adversity, to bear upon the question.

Happily for the country, happily for you and for me, the judgment of James Buchanan, the patrician, was not the judgment of Abraham Lincoln, the plebeian.

His predecessor in office had already decided the question in favor of national dismemberment, by denying to it the right of self-defence and self-preservation--a right which belongs to the meanest insect.

The tremendous question for him to decide was whether his country should survive the crisis and flourish, or be dismembered and perish.

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

A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.