Frederick Douglass: “We have conventions in America for Ireland, but we should have none if Ireland did not speak for herself.”

It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.

We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.

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

My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes.