Frederick Douglass: “I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness.”

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

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

But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.

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