In Douglass’ view, the unending deference of northern liberals set the stage for southern ascendancy. Their insatiable eagerness to “reach across the isle” (as we say today) produced a vortex of appeasement, given that the North was always ready to make concessions and the South unwilling to make any. “Under this so called practical wisdom and statesmanship, we have had sixty years of compromising servility on the part of the North to the slave power of the South.”