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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

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Slavery Quotes

“In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time.”

WayFirstsFoundFatherLeftNationsHalfInstitutionsSlaverySlaveOur FatherBe A Slave
Book:CIVIL WAR – Complete History of the War, Documents, Memoirs & Biographies of the Lead Commanders: Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant & William T. Sherman, Biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis & Robert E. Lee, The Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg Address, Presidential Orders & Actions
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“Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would, directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears.”

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Book:The Complete Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln
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“I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery.”

IfsBelieveHappensTogetherEvilOpportunityI BelieveSlaverySlaveUnhappyPityAbolishDescendantsTransmitAbhorrence
Book:Patrick Henry in his speeches and writings and in the words of his contemporaries
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“Upon the decease [of] my wife, it is my Will and desire th[at] all the Slaves which I hold in [my] own right, shall receive their free[dom] . . . . The Negroes thus bound, are (by their Masters or Mistresses) to be taught to read and write; and to be brought up to some useful occupation, agreeably to the Laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, providing for the support of Orphan and other poor Children. And I do hereby expressly forbid the Sale, or transportation out of the said Commonwealth, of any Slave I may die possessed of, under any pretence whatsoever.”

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Author:George Washington
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“Your late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view to emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit would diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country; but I despair of seeing it.”

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Book:Writings: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts
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“The crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition, that can be heaped upon us, till custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway.”

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Book:The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799: prepared under the direction of the United States George Washington bicentennial commission and published by authority of Congress
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“If I were to meet the slave-traders who kidnapped me and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands, for if that did not happen, I would not be a Christian and Religious today... The Lord has loved me so much: we must love everyone... we must be compassionate!”

IfsLoveGodHandsHappensTodayChristianSufferingReligiousCompassionChristianityLordKissingCatholicSlaverySlaveSaintGod LoveTortureCompassionateTradersKidnappedLove EveryoneKneelingSlave Trade
Author:Josephine Bakhita
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“From the standpoint of modern political science the slave holders were right in declaring that liberty can be given only to those who have political capacity enough to use it, and they were also right in maintaining that two greatly unequal races cannot exist side by side on terms of perfect equality.”

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Author:Charles Edward Merriam
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“There is no justification for the common claim that Christianity was responsible for the abolition of slavery. The Negro slave trade - a far more infamous practice than slavery in the ancient world - was initiated, carried on and defended by Christian men in Christian countries.”

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Author:Margaret E. Knight
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“I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies.”

IfsMayMeanLongTwoWarStatesShowsLevelsRaceEnemyStruggleRightsRacismRegardSlaverySlaveRaisedComplainingCivil RightsSouthernDeprivedObligedRevoltAbolitionFreemanAbolition Of Slavery
Book:Democracy in America
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“The incomparable James Walvin has done it again: he has crafted a beautifully written and deeply informed single volume history of the Atlantic slave trade and its consequences on three continents. This book is full of fresh ideas and astounding detail; it is at once great storytelling, punctuated with real people and voices, and an unblinking analysis of numerous great questions and paradoxes about the power of slavery in creating the Atlantic world over four centuries.”

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Author:David W. Blight
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“In all the ages the Roman Church has owned slaves, bought and sold slaves, authorized and encouraged her children to trade in them. . . . There were the texts; there was no mistaking their meaning; . . . she was doing in all this thing what the Bible had mapped out for her to do. So unassailable was her position that in all the centuries she had no word to say against human slavery.”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“It was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of slavery. My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact.”

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Book:Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
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“The slave frees himself when, of all the relations of private property, he abolishes only the relation of slavery and thereby becomes a proletarian; the proletarian can free himself only by abolishing private property in general.”

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Book:The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History's Most Important Political Document
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“It was not Christianity which freed the slave: Christianity accepted slavery; Christian ministers defended it; Christian merchants trafficked in human flesh and blood, and drew their profits from the unspeakable horrors of the middle passage. Christian slaveholders treated their slaves as they did the cattle in their fields: they worked them, scourged them, mated them , parted them, and sold them at will. Abolition came with the decline in religious belief, and largely through the efforts of those who were denounced as heretics.”

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Author:Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner
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“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.”

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Author:John Coleman
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“Many Southern Plantation owners were working towards the day when they could convert their investment to more profitable industrial production as had been done in the North, and others felt that freemen who were paid wages would be more efficient than slaves who had no incentive to work. For the present, however, they were stuck with the system they inherited. They felt that a complete and sudden abolition of slavery with no transition period would destroy their economy and leave many of the former slaves to starve - all of which actually happened in due course.”

WarDoneWould BeCoursesFeltEconomyHappenedPeriodsPaidSlaverySlaveInvestmentProductionsDuesStuckFormerCivil WarOwnersTransitionSouthernEfficientWagesIncentivesProfitableAbolitionFreemanPlantationsAbolition Of Slavery
Author:G. Edward Griffin
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“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

IfsBelieveWarHelpingI BelieveRaceStruggleObjectsSlaveryUnionsSlaveLeavingCivil WarIf I CouldAmerican Civil WarParamountSecessionAmerican SlaverySlavery In AmericaCauses Of War
Author:Abraham Lincoln
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“To be ignorant and to be deceived are two different things. To be ignorant is to be a slave of the world. To be deceived is to be the slave of another man. The question will always be: Why, when all men are ignorant, and therefore already slaves, does this latter slavery sting us so?”

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Book:The Darkness that Comes Before: The Prince of Nothing, Book One (The Prince of Nothing)
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“No, this is not what a fair God would do. And why does it not say anywhere in the Bible that slavery is wrong? It only says that you should treat your slaves well. Well, I don't care if you treat them well. How is it possible that it is not immoral to own another person? Why isn't that one of the Ten Commandments? 'Thou shalt not own another person.' You want to sit here and tell me that fornication is worse than owning someone?”

IfsWantShouldWellsPersonsDoeCareTenFairsTreatsSlaverySlaveDon't CareI Don't CareCommandmentsImmoralTen Commandments
Author:Mira Sorvino
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“Haiti was founderd by a righteous revolution in 1804 and became the first black republic. It was the first country to break the chains of slavery, the first to force Emperor Napoleon to retreat, and the only to aid Simón Bolívar in his struggle to liberate the indigenous people and slaves of Latin America from their colonial oppressors.”

PeopleFirstsCountryAmericaForceBlackBreakStruggleRevolutionSlaverySlaveAidsChainsLatinRepublicRighteousRetreatIndigenousEmperorLatin AmericaOppressorsHaitiIndigenous PeopleSims
Book:Haiti After the Earthquake
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