As his fame as a dramatic preacher spread, Beecher in the 1850s also gained a reputation as an abolitionist. An early critic of the expansion of slavery into the western territories, he protested the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law (1850), supported his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe in her publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852, and became an early campaigner for the Republican party. Guns sent to Kansas in 1855 during the dispute over the new territory became known as "Beecher's Bibles," an ironic reference to them as a force for moral suasion.

Henson's life story is that of a daring early leader of slaves and escaped slaves, a man of high moral principles who endured great suffering. Although the British American Institute was small and unsuccessful, Henson's work as an ambassador to England for African Americans did much for their perception overseas. His greatest achievement was the example he offered of a man born into slavery, illiterate and handicapped by vicious physical abuse, who gained his freedom, learned to read, and became a preacher and a leader of a community of escaped slaves.

Supporting southern unity against "freesoil aggression" (Bailey, p. 70), Roberts aligned himself in the 1850s with states' rights Democrats against more nationally minded Texans who identified with Sam Houston. Though not counted among Texas's fire-eaters, he apparently became convinced by 1860 that the election of a Republican president would warrant southern independence. Accordingly, as Abraham Lincoln's victory became apparent, Associate Justice Roberts began to plot strategy with similarly inclined politicians and made a much-publicized speech in Austin supporting secession.

MOODY, YOUNG MARSHALL, business man and brigadier general, C. S. Army, was born June 23, 1822, in Chesterfield County, Va., and died September 18, 1866, in New Orleans, La.; son of Carter and Sarah (Pankey) Moody, natives of Chesterfield County, Va.; grandson of Lewis and Catherine (Gatewood) Moody, of Essex County, Va., and of Stephen Pankey, who was a colonel in the Revolutionary War. The Moody family is of English descent, the earliest ancestors settling in Richmond County upon their arrival in America.

When [President Abraham] Lincoln was shot that night, another assassin, Lewis Payne, was to kill the secretary of state, who was recovering in bed from an accident. Fred Seward stopped Payne outside his father's bedroom. Payne tried to shoot him, but the pistol misfired. Payne pistol-whipped Fred, fracturing his skull. The assassin then slashed [Secretary of State] William Seward, who eventually recovered. Fred lay unconscious for days before beginning to improve.