Frederick Douglass: “Ye blind guides! which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.”

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.

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

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