What did Frederick Douglass think of Abraham Lincoln?

My views on Abraham Lincoln were never simple, and I would not want them flattened into either uncritical praise or easy condemnation. He was a man of profound complexity, and I tried to render him with honesty. I said it plainly at the unveiling of the Freedmen's Monument in 1876: “Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined” That tension is the heart of the matter. As a pure abolitionist, I chafed at his delays. As a student of political reality, I came to respect his navigation of an impossible situation. He shared the prejudices of his white countrymen — I never pretended otherwise. Yet I also insisted, in that same oration, that “in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery” A man who could write the words of the Second Inaugural — that every drop of blood drawn by the lash might be repaid by the sword — had demonstrated where his moral convictions truly lay. And I knew him personally. When I met him, as I recorded in Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, “I at once felt myself in the presence of an honest man--one whom I could love, honor, and trust without reserve or doubt” That was not flattery. That was my considered judgment of the man.