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This text explores the relationship between Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, two self-made men whose lives intersected near the end of America's Civil War.

In reflecting on both a pivotal moment in her life during the Civil War and the longer-term effects of such an event, Mrs. Albright excludes her family from the violent system of slavery while adhering to stereotypically Southern values. The necessity of interracial intimacy is noticeable in Mrs. Albright’s descriptions.

The Fugitive Slave Clause was a stipulation in the U.S. Constitution (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3) that enslaved persons who escaped to another state had to be returned to their previous enslaver if discovered. An essential component of the Compromise of 1850 included a strengthening of that clause, through what was known as the Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850. The bill served as a concession to southern congressmen who wanted increased power to capture formerly enslaved persons. Congress passed the bill on September 18, 1850, and President Millard Fillmore signed it into law on the same day.