So far as peaceful, voluntary emancipation is concerned, the condition of the negro slave in America, scarcely less terrible to the contemplation of the free mind, is now as fixed and hopeless of change for the better as that of the lost souls of the finally impenitent.
Lincoln expressed a grim assessment that the prospect of peaceful, voluntary emancipation for enslaved people in America was utterly hopeless, comparing their fate to eternal damnation.
Share
More from Abraham Lincoln
The question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it?
If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.
If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
I do the very best I know how--the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end.
Other voices in this conversation
