Frederick Douglass was convinced not only by his words but by the fact that Abraham Lincoln was so clearly the choice of the people who knew him. He threw his pen and voice into the contest. Many of the Abolitionists hung back; many an “old guard” politician sulked. Wendell Phillips dug up evidence that Lincoln had supported enforcement of the hated Fugitive Slave Law in Illinois.
But Douglass shook his leonine mane and campaigned throughout New York State and in Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago—wherever Negroes could vote.
“Here is a man who knows your weariness,” he told them. “This is your opportunity to make your voice heard. Send Lincoln to the White House! Strengthen his hand that he may fight for you!”
Fear gripped the South. They called Lincoln the “Black Republican.” No longer was the North divided. Young Republicans organized marching clubs and tramped through the city streets; torchlight processions turned night into day: John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave.... A new singing could be heard in the remotest pine woods of the South:
“Oh, freedom
Oh, freedom!
Oh, freedom ovah me—
An’ befo’ I’d be a slave
I’d be buried in mah grave
An’ go home to my Lawd