Best slavery & moral Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation.”

Source: Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848

“A man's moral sense must be unusually strong if slavery does not make him a thief.”

Ifs Men Doe Strong Moral Slavery Thieves

Book:Jefferson: Political Writings

Source: Jefferson: Political Writings

“The travesty of slavery wasn't physical abuse. It was the moral abuse of looking at a human being as if they are an animal.”

Ifs Humans Human Beings Animal Moral Abuse Slavery Physical Abuse Travesty

Author:Alan Keyes

“God, or rather the fiction of God, is thus the sanction and the intellectual and moral cause of all the slavery on earth, and the liberty of men will not be complete, unless it will have completely annihilated the inauspicious fiction of a heavenly master.”

Men Earth Causes Fiction Liberty Moral Atheism Masters Intellectual Slavery Positive Atheism Heavenly Sanctions

Author:Mikhail Bakunin

“Our opinions agree as to the evil, moral, political, and economical, of slavery.”

Political Evil Moral Opinion Agree Slavery

Book:1816-1828

Source: 1816-1828

“Ah! the curse of slavery, as the common phrase goes, has fallen not merely on the black but perhaps at this moment still more upon the white, because it has warped his sense of truth and has degraded his moral nature. The position and the treatment of the blacks, however, really improve from year to year; while the whites do not seem to advance in enlightenment.”

Years Stills Moments Seems Black White Common Moral Position Enlightenment Slavery Curse Fallen Phrases Treatment

Book:America of the Fifties: Letters of Fredrika Bremer

Source: America of the Fifties: Letters of Fredrika Bremer

“Over the centuries, we've moved on from Scripture to accumulate precepts of ethical, legal and moral philosophy. We've evolved a liberal consensus of what we regard as underpinnings of decent society, such as the idea that we don't approve of slavery or discrimination on the grounds of race or sex, that we respect free speech and the rights of the individual. All of these things that have become second nature to our morals today owe very little to religion, and mostly have been won in opposition to the teeth of religion.”

“As to a thorough eradication of prostitution, nothing can accomplish that save a complete transvaluation of all accepted values--especially the moral ones--coupled with the abolition of industrial slavery.”

Values Moral Labor Slavery Accomplish Accepted Prostitution Thorough Abolition

Book:Anarchism: Top Crime Collections

Source: Anarchism: Top Crime Collections

“Human beings have rights, because they are moral beings: the rights of all men grow out of their moral nature; and as all men havethe same moral nature, they have essentially the same rights. These rights may be wrested from the slave, but they cannot be alienated: his title to himself is as perfect now, as is that of Lyman Beecher: it is stamped on his moral being, and is, like it, imperishable.”

Men Humans May Grows Human Beings Perfect Moral Rights Morality Slavery Slave Human Rights Titles

Author:Angelina Grimke

“Disunion and civil war are at hand; and yet I fear disunion and war less than compromise. We can recover from them. The free States alone, if we must go on alone, will make a glorious nation. Twenty millions in the temperate zone, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, full of vigor, industry, inventive genius, educated, and moral; increasing by immigration rapidly, and, above all, free--all free--will form a confederacy of twenty States scarcely inferior in real power to the unfortunate Union of thirty-three States which we had on the first of November.”

Source: Conspicuous Gallantry: Civil War Diary and Letters of Rutherford B. Hayes (Abridged)

“Black folks are judged by quantity, not quality. It's a decimal point or figure. How different is that from slavery? There's no moral code, it's just about successful business for America.”

Different America Black Quality Moral Successful Figures Slavery Folks Code Judged Quantity Successful Business Moral Code Decimals

Author:Chuck D

“According to the classic liberal-arts ideal, learning promises liberation, but it is not liberation from demanding moral ideals and social norms, or liberation to act on our desires-it is, rather, liberation from slavery to those desires, from slavery to self.”

Art Self Desire Social Moral Promise Ideals Slavery Liberation Classic Norm Social Norms Liberal Arts

Book:Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism

Source: Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism

“I should like to say that I left off smoking because I considered it a mean form of slavery, to be condemned for moral as well as physical reasons; but though I see the folly of smoking clearly now, I was blind to it for some months after I had smoked my last pipe. I gave up my most delightful solace, as I regarded it, for no other reason than that the lady who was willing to fling herself away on me said that I must choose between it and her.”

Should Wells Mean Said Reason Lasts Form Left Moral Willing Months Slavery Blind Folly Smoking Delightful Pipe Gave Up Solace Fling

Author:James M. Barrie

“What was distinctively Western was not slavery but the moral crusade to end slavery.”

Ends Moral Slavery Western Crusades

Book:The End of Racism: Finding Values In An Age Of Technoaffluence

Source: The End of Racism: Finding Values In An Age Of Technoaffluence

“It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their indepdence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery...and the world, it might be hoped, would see it as a moral war, not a political; and the sympathy of nations would begin to run for the North, not for the South.”

World War States Might Running Political Fighting Nations Moral Slavery South Extensions Contests Transforming Disadvantages Maintenance

Book:A History of The American Poeple

Source: A History of The American Poeple

“We call 'Slavery is wrong' a moral truth because there is a specific history of theoretical investigation of a particular kind of slavery. We discussed it for centuries in metaphysical, economic, biological, and philosophical terms; we listened to all the arguments pro and con, we read all the testimonies of slaves and witnesses, and we decided. Though this 'we" is not everybody on earth, or even most people, who've never thought about slavery much.”

People Kind Earth Term Moral Economic Century Particular Truth Is Argument Decided Philosophical Slavery Slave Witness Investigation Metaphysical Testimony Theoretical Pros And Cons

Author:Catherine Wilson

“Theoretically, you can make, obviously, a powerful argument that centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination are the primary cause for all those gaps. That those were wrongs done to the black community as a whole, and black families specifically, and that in order to close that gap, a society has a moral obligation to make a large, aggressive investment, even if it's not in the form of individual reparations checks, but in the form of a Marshall Plan, in order to close those gaps. It is easy to make that theoretical argument.”

“Social rules are susceptible to moral analysis. This is, again, relatively familiar in the domestic case, where we now condemn slavery as unjust. And when we affirm this judgment, we're not merely saying that all those people who owned slaves were unethical people; they shouldn't have done that. We do believe this, but that's only part of the point. We also believe that the fugitive slave laws were unjust.”

People Believe Done Law Social Moral Cases Judgment Slavery Slave Familiar Analysis Unjust Susceptible Fugitive Unethical

Author:Thomas Pogge

“Think of US slavery in 1850, or the subjection of women. Both of these injustices could have been - and were! - defended by pointing out, quite correctly, that this situation of slaves and women had been improving throughout the preceding century. Slaves, in particular, were worked less hard, beaten and raped less frequently, better fed, and less often ripped apart from their families. So would a celebration of moral progress have been appropriate in 1850? Surely not. Slavery could have been and should have been abolished - then, if not before.”

“You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.”

World Humans Artist Hate Race Half Liberty Moral Virtue This World Slavery Human Race Moral Virtues

Book:Complete writings: with variant readings

Source: Complete writings: with variant readings

“I have observed this in my experience of slavery, - that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man.”

Thinking Men Feels Made Reason Able Desire Found Moral Vision Plans Conditions Gains Slavery Slave Contentment Be A Man Inconsistency

Book:Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

“In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth century, it was the battle against totalitarianism. We believe that in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality around the world.”

World Believe Challenges Moral Struggle Century Battle Slavery Gender Around The World Twentieth Century Totalitarianism Gender Equality Nineteenth Century Paramount

Book:Half the Sky

Source: Half the Sky

“You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principle enemy of moral progress in the world.”

Source: The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959

“How does something immoral, when done privately, become moral when it is done collectively? Furthermore, does legality establish morality? Slavery was legal; apartheid is legal; Stalinist, Nazi, and Maoist purges were legal. Clearly, the fact of legality does not justify these crimes. Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people.”

People Doe Done Facts Moral Crime Morality Slavery Justify Nazi Immoral Apartheid Legality Talismans

Author:Walter E. Williams

“Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil; it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.”

Self Evil Enjoy Moral Slavery Pleasant Wickedness Reducing

Book:The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle

Source: The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle

“I am now speaking of rights under the Constitution, and not of moral or religious rights. I do not discuss the morals of the people of Missouri, but let them settle that matter for themselves. I hold that the people of the slaveholding States are civilized men as well as ourselves, that they bear consciences as well as we, and that they are accountable to God and their posterity and not to us. It is for them to decide therefore the moral and religious right of the slavery question for themselves within their own limits.”

People Men Wells Matter States Religious Moral Rights Bears Limits Conscience Constitution Slavery Settling Abortion Civilized Posterity Missouri Religious Rights

Author:Stephen A. Douglas

“Now I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil.”

Country Political Evil Social Moral Class Slavery Belonging Contemplating

Book:The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Source: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

“He [Stephen Douglas] is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national.”

Way Want Mind Humans Soul Reason Light Lying Liberty Moral Influence Institutions Slavery Slave Perpetual Preparing Human Soul

Book:The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858

Source: The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858

“We think slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the territories, where our votes will reach it.”

Thinking Wish Moral Vote Treats Claims Slavery Territory

Book:Lincoln Speeches

Source: Lincoln Speeches

“Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil, having due regard for its actual existence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end.”

Source: The Complete Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln

“The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain.”

People Should Long Country Causes Justice Moral Should Have Slavery Vain Reproach

Book:The portable Thomas Jefferson

Source: The portable Thomas Jefferson

“I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: 'If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.' Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.”

Ifs Wells Doe Moral Tests Slavery Torture Abraham

Book:Arguably

Source: Arguably

“African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.”

States Political Social United Moral United States Blessing Slavery

Author:Jefferson Davis

“There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.”

Believe Age Political Evil I Believe Moral Institutions Slavery I Believe In Acknowledge Enlightened

Author:Robert E. Lee

“Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.”

Years Two Whole America Moral Five Policy Equal Hundred Slavery Debt Thirty Five Years Fifty Racist Sixty Ninety Housing Crow Jim Crow Separate But Equal

Author:Ta-Nehisi Coates

“I don't think the people of the slave states will ever consider the subject of slavery in its true light till some other argument is resorted to other than moral persuasion.”

People Thinking States Light Moral Subjects Argument Slavery Slave Persuasion

Book:The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas and Martyr of Virginia

Source: The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas and Martyr of Virginia

“Only let the North exert as much moral influence over the South, as the South has exerted demoralizing influence over the North, and slavery would die amid the flame of Christian remonstrance, and faithful rebuke, and holy indignation”

Christian Dies Moral Influence Holy Slavery South Faithful Flames Indignation Rebuke Demoralizing Moral Indignation

Book:On Slavery and Abolitionism: Essays and Letters

Source: On Slavery and Abolitionism: Essays and Letters

“The South was at the point where the scale was tipping against slavery. It was slowly dawning on the plantation owners that slave labor was not economic, besides being morally wrong. Slavery was destined to be abolished, whether for economic reasons or moral reasons matters not, but the international intriguers were not going to wait for voluntary abolition to rob them of their trump card.”

War Matter Reason Waiting Moral Economic Trump Labor Slavery Slave South International Scales Cards Civil War Owners Destined Abolition Tipping Plantations Slave Labor

Author:John Coleman

“The Civil War was started over economic issues, not slavery. The War was not popular in the North until the issue of slavery was added at a later time to turn it into a moral crusade.”

War Turns Moral Issues Economic Slavery Civil War Crusades Economic Issues

Author:G. Edward Griffin

“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

“When you consider that God could have commanded anything he wanted--anything!--the Ten [Commandments] have got to rank as one of the great missed moral opportunities of all time. How different history would have been had he clearly and unmistakably forbidden war, tyranny, taking over other people's countries, slavery, exploitation of workers, cruelty to children, wife-beating, stoning, treating women--or anyone--as chattel or inferior beings.”

“In the same way that slavery was a moral challenge for the 19th century and totalitarianism was a challenge for the 20th century, the challenge that women and girls face around the world is the moral challenge of our time.”

World Way Faces Girl Challenges Moral Century Slavery Around The World Our Time 20th Century Totalitarianism 19th Century

Author:Sheryl WuDunn

“I read Norman Lock’s The Boy in His Winter with delight and amazement. Styled in the vernacular of a rapidly changing America, it stays true to the themes of Mark Twain’s original: class relations, race and slavery, childhood innocence, moral hypocrisy—and, of course, the stark beauty and unforgiving nature of America’s greatest river. I finished this absolutely elegant narrative feeling that Huck Finn has never been more alive.”

“That slow poison [slavery] is daily contaminating the minds and morals of our people. Every gentlemen here is born a petty tyrant, practiced in acts of despotism and cruelty.”

People Mind Born Moral Revolution Slavery Cruelty Gentleman Poison Tyrants Petty Despotism American Revolution Petty Tyrants

Author:George Mason

“Legality alone is no guide for a moral people. There are many things in this world that have been, or are, legal but clearly immoral. Slavery was legal. Did that make it moral? South Africa’s apartheid, Nazi persecution of Jews, and Stalinist and Maoist purges were all legal, but did that make them moral?”

People World Has Beens Moral This World Slavery South Jew Guides South Africa Nazi Persecution Immoral Apartheid Legality

Author:Walter E. Williams

“The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder's moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a priveleged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.”

World Names Known Moral Class Effects Band Perception Slavery Aristocracy Conceded Slaveholders

Book:A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Source: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Slavery Quotes

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Slavery Quotes