Viewed apart and alone, as a transaction separate and distinct from its antecedents and bearings, it takes rank with the most cold-blooded and atrocious wrongs ever perpetrated; but just here is the trouble--this raid on Harper's Ferry, no more than Sherman's march to the sea can consent to be thus viewed alone.
He critiques the tendency to view events in isolation, stressing the interconnectedness of historical actions.
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More from Frederick Douglass
He was called upon not merely to administer the government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.
I believed I should get enough to eat at Covey’s, even if I suffered in other respects, and this to a hungry man is not a prospect to be regarded with indifference.
A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.