Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, the abolitionist, believed that the war was about just one thing: ending slavery. In Beecher’s words, “every drop of blood spilt without accomplishing that” was “certainty squandered.” Seaman also quoted Frederick Douglass: “My friends, this is an age of progress; we are growing wiser every day; those who, a few years ago, would not recognize the colored man as their equal, now begin to see that he is, in some instances possessed of superior qualities.”
