A house divided against itself

Siiiigh, I could never have predicted feeling so free back up in here.

I'm watching Ken Burns' Civil War documentary. Quotes from some of the country's most talented, perceptive, passionate writers. Mary Chestnut, Fredrick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and countless soldiers.

As a nation, we began by declaring that "All men are created equal." We now practically read it, "All men are created equal, except Negroes." Soon, it will read "All men are created equal, except Negroes, and Foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty. To Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
-Abraham Lincoln

I appear this evening as a thief and robber. I stole this head, these limbs, this body from my master and ran off with them.
-Frederick Douglass on his escape from slavery

Some themes I recognize, and tell me if you see them too:
Fear of increasing federal power; assertion of the righteousness of one sector of society over another; discourse playing out like a fistfight.