You are reminded about Frederick Douglass' Oration at paragraph 9, from which I quoted in my #429, and which you choose to ignore:I didn't ignore it. I answered it with 14, which is what Frederick Douglas was building up to. Here it is again.
Actually you did not rebut Douglass with Douglass. But as you believe Douglass, let us try some more Douglass, from when Lincoln was still alive, and before he was sainted.
Douglass' Monthly, Vol. 4, Number 4, September 1861, page 514
CAST OFF THE MILL STONE.We are determined that our readers shall have line upon line and precept upon precept. Ours is only one humble voice; but such as it is, we give it freely to our country, and to the cause of humanity. That honesty is the best policy, we all profess to believe, though our practice may often contradict the proverb. The present policy of our Government is evidently to put down the slaveholding rebellion, and at the same time protect and preserve slavery. This policy hangs like a millstone about the neck of our people. It carries disorder to the very sources of our national activities. Weakness, faint heartedness and inefficiency is the natural result The mental and moral machinery of mankind cannot long withstand such disorder without serious damage. This policy offends reason, wounds the sensibilities, and shocks the moral sentiments of men. It forces upon us in consequent conclusions and painful contradictions, while the plain path of duty is obscured and thronged with multiplying difficulties. Let us look this slavery-preserving policy squarely in the face, and search it thoroughly.
Can the friends of that policy tell ns why this should not be an abolition war? Is not abolition plainly forced upon the nation as a necessity of national existence? Are not the rebels determined to make the war on tbeir part a war for the utter destruction of liber-ty and the complete mastery of slavery over every other right and interest in the land?— And is not an abolition war on our part the natural and logical answer to be made to the rebels ! We all know it is. But it is said that for the Government to adopt the abolition policy, would involve the loss of the support of the Union men of the Border Slave States.
It appears that it was not an abolition war then.
Looking back afterwards, this is what he said of President Lincoln.
"Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."