At the time of the Civil War, everyone knew who Frederick Douglass was. It was almost impossible not to be aware of his unusual friendship that he shared with Abraham Lincoln. Their friendship was probably the most important to develop during the Civil War conflict; it changed the course of the nation. They were both very stubborn and needed each other to advance their agendas. Yet they were two quite different men of their time. Douglass was more of a radical abolitionist, which meant he wanted slavery to end immediately. Lincoln, on the other hand, believed that slavery should gradually end, not immediately, but would take at least 100 years. Their differences made Douglass's view of Lincoln not so appreciative and there wasn't much respect in the friendship. So what really drove Frederick Douglass to say his famous quote about Lincoln, despite some of the hatred he held for him before the Civil War? As a slave himself in his early years, Frederick Douglass was one who staunchly opposed slavery. Raised in slavery, he had no choice. But he won the right to freedom by fleeing to the North. As he grew up and entered the controversial world of politics, he met Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln shared the same views on slavery as Douglass. According to him, Lincoln didn't want slavery to exist either. But Lincoln was white; unlike Douglass, the slavery issue did not hit him as hard as it hit Douglass. Frederick Douglass knew what the act of slavery was like, he experienced it. So he despised the fact that Lincoln chose to unite the Union instead of ending slavery, immediately. It was clear what Lincoln's act was; many of his critics called him a tyrant and that was... middle of paper... after the Civil War, Frederick Douglass continued to think highly of Lincoln and his great speech. It was hard to believe that before the Civil War the two men were at odds and fighting over the greatest and most terrible sin they committed, slavery. But they found a way to forge a friendship that would last throughout the story. It was his famous quote that really caught attention. He had said of the sixteenth president: “His greatest mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, secondly, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. . . . considering it as a whole, measuring the enormous magnitude of the work before it, considering the means necessary to achieve the ends, and observing the end from the beginning, has infinite wisdom rarely sent into the world a man more suited to his mission than Abraham Lincoln..”