Abe on John, Fred on Abe

"Old John Brown has been executed for treason against a state.  We cannot object, even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong.  That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed and treason.  It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right."  Abraham Lincoln, December 2, 1859

"It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model.  In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.  He was preeminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men."  Frederick Douglass, April 14, 1876