“I remember you told me last November, just before your
departure for Washington, that you were looking forward to
fearful trials in the approaching session, but that the
path of duty was plain before you, and that you should
walk therein. Nobly, most nobly, have you redeemed that
pledge. But the apprehension with which the first part of
your remark filled me at the time included nothing like
this scene of murderous guilt. How could it? How could any
one, who had not measured all the length and breadth of
slaveholding depravity, as I had not, have brought such a
thing within the range of imagination or prophecy?”