Library of Congress Frederick Douglass
The only thing foggier than war itself may be the path to its frightening, if too often exhilarating, outbreak. Indeed, the secession crisis and road to civil war took an enormous emotional toll on Americans of every persuasion and in every corner of the land. Few, however, expressed themselves as publicly or eloquently as Frederick Douglass. “I have never spent days so restless and anxious,” he said in an early April 1861, lecture at Rochester’s Spring Street A.M.E. Zion Church. “Our mornings and evenings have continually oscillated between the dim light of hope and the gloomy shadow of despair.” ...
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/the-dim-light-of-hope/?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As