SLAVERY QUOTES II
quotations about slavery
Slavery is about money. People are enslaved to make a profit. Most slaveholders have little interest in hurting anyone, in being cruel or torturing someone; it is simply part of the job.
KEVIN BALES & BECKY CORNELL
Slavery Today
There is nothing more painful than dishonor, nothing more vile than slavery; we have been born for the enjoyment of honor and liberty; let us either retain these or die with dignity.
CICERO
attributed, Day's Collacon
These bronzed Southern soldiers are literally our forefathers too. In the peculiar, perverted institution of slavery, white men sired, enslaved and often sold their own children; black nieces and white nephews played together before adulthood drove them to disparate destinies. Whites owned their black siblings. Thomas Jefferson was 45 when he fathered the first of six children on 15-year-old Sally Hemmings, who was his wife's half sister and also her property.
LISA RICHARDSON
"A daughter of the Confederacy corrects history", Gulf Times, August 29, 2017
Slavery as an institution that degraded man to a thing has never died out. In some periods of history it has flourished: many civilizations have climbed to power and glory on the backs of slaves. In other times slaves have dwindled in number and economic importance. But never has slavery disappeared.
MILTON MELTZER
Slavery: A World History
We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.
JAMES MADISON
speech at the Constitutional Convention, June 6, 1787
Who enslaves another's manhood with weak human power alone,
Lays a heavier yoke of bondage thoughtlessly upon his own.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN
"Slavery"
If in our national memory it is considered heroic both to kill in the defense of slavery and to die attempting to undo slavery's legacy, then heroism has no meaning. But since we have failed to properly cast the Confederacy as a villain, or even to definitively state that the reason for its secession from the Union was the preservation of slavery, the standards for heroism are more malleable than they perhaps should be. Where we have (mostly) condemned slavery, we have refused to condemn its defenders, choosing to view their actions not as villainous but historical anomalies. We allow them the excuse of being "products of their time," as if they had no hand in shaping the political and social dynamics of that time. We give them the cover of "states' rights," as though that has not always meant further tyranny visited upon black people.
MYCHAL DENZEL SMITH
"Historical Amnesia About Slavery Is a Tool of White Supremacy", The Nation, August 15, 2017
Man puts manacles on his fellow-man; God never.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
That execrable sum of all villainies ... the slave-trade.
JOHN WESLEY
The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, Volume 3
Slavery can only be abolished by raising the character of the people who compose the nation; and that can be done only by showing them a higher one.
MARIA WESTON CHAPMAN
speech, 1855
No one is more of a slave than he who thinks himself free without being so.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
You say [slavery] is wrong; but don't you constantly object to anybody else saying so? Do you not constantly argue that this is not the right place to oppose it? You say it must not be opposed in the free States, because slavery is not there; it must not be opposed in the slave States, because it is there; it must not be opposed in politics, because that will make a fuss; it must not be opposed in the pulpit, because it is not religion. Then where is the place to oppose it?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 13, 1858
I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Slavery is the bane of man and the abomination of heaven.
N. P. TALLMADGE
attributed, Day's Collacon
This abomination must have an end. And there is a superior bench reserved in Heaven for those who hasten it.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Edward Rutledge, July 14, 1787
The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other -- devils dressed in angels' robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.
FREDERICK DOUGLAS
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
The judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, and insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration; and that it is a slander upon the framers of that instrument to suppose that negroes were meant therein; and he asks you: Is it possible to believe that Mr. Jefferson, who penned the immortal paper, could have supposed himself applying the language of that instrument to the negro race, and yet held a portion of that race in slavery? Would he not at once have freed them? I only have to remark upon this part of the judge's speech (and that, too, very briefly, for I shall not detain myself, or you, upon that point for any great length of time), that I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence; I think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said so, that Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the present policy of the Democratic party in regard to slavery had to invent that affirmation. And I will remind Judge Douglas and this audience that while Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in speaking upon this very subject, he used the strong language that "he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just."
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 7, 1858
The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
OSCAR WILDE
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
There was a time when you were not a slave, remember that. You walked alone, full of laughter, you bathed bare-bellied. You say you have lost all recollection of it, remember ... You say there are no words to describe this time, you say it does not exist. But remember. Make an effort to remember. Or, failing that, invent.
MONIQUE WITTIG
Les Guerrilleres
Though a man be a slave, he is the same flesh as thyself; for no one has ever been born a slave by nature; but fortune subjected his body to servitude.
PHILEMON
attributed, Day's Collacon