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Slavery Quotes

Browse 2495 quotes about Slavery.

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Slavery Quotes

“In the United States of North America, every independent movement of the workers was paralysed so long as slavery disfigured a part of the Republic. Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded.”

LongStatesAmericaBlackWhiteUnitedUnited StatesMovementSkinsIndependentSlaveryWorkersLabourRepublicNorth AmericaBrandedWhite Skin
Book:Capital: A Critique of Political Economy - The Process of Capitalist Production
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“The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that "A state half slave and half free cannot exist." All must become slave or all free, or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.”

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Book:The Personal Memoirs of General U. S.
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“I've always been interested in history, but they never taught Negro history in the public schools...I don't see how a history of the United States can be written honestly without including the Negro. I didn't [paint] just as a historical thing, but because I believe these things tie up with the Negro today. We don't have a physical slavery, but an economic slavery. If these people, who were so much worse off than the people today, could conquer their slavery, we can certainly do the same thing....I am not a politician. I'm an artist, just trying to do my part to bring this thing about.”

PeopleIfsTryingBelieveStatesTodaySchoolArtistI BelieveUnitedUnited StatesWrittenEconomicTaughtPoliticianSlaveryHistoricalPaintIncludingHonestlyConquerTiesPublic SchoolEconomic Slavery
Author:Jacob Lawrence
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“I think all these reverend gentlemen who insist on the word 'obey' in the marriage service should be removed for a clear violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which says there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude within the United States.”

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Book:Elizabeth Cady Stanton: As Revealed in Her Letters & Diary (Abridged)
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“The slave power dares anything, and it can be conquered only by the united masses of the people. From Congress to the people, I appeal.”

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Book:American slavery: repr. of an article [by N.W. Senior, entitled Slavery in the United States] on 'Uncle Tom's cabin' [by H.E.B. Stowe] and of mr. Sumner's speech of the 19th and 20th of May, 1856. With a notice of the events which followed that speech
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“Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant--they have been cheated; asleep--they have been surprised; divided--the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson...? The people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it.... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free.”

PeopleMenShouldHumansWellsHas BeensGovernmentBornUnitedRaceWatchesOughtLessonsSlaveryIgnorantHuman RaceEnlightenedOver ItDividedAwakenedCheatedYokeBorn Free
Author:James Madison
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“The parallel between antifeminism and race prejudice is striking. The same underlying motives appear to be at work, namely fear, jealousy, feelings of insecurity, fear of economic competition, guilt feelings, and the like. Many of the leaders of the feminist movement in the nineteenth-century United States clearly understood the similarity of the motives at work in antifeminism and race discrimination and associated themselves with the anti slavery movement.”

StatesFeelingsUnitedRaceLeaderUnited StatesEconomicCenturyMovementRacismUnderstoodPrejudiceSlaveryGuiltCompetitionFeministDiscriminationMotiveInsecuritySexismParallelsSimilarityNineteenth CenturyFeminist MovementAnti SlaveryGuilt FeelingsEconomic Competition
Author:Ashley Montagu
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“The presence of the blacks is the greatest evil that threatens the United States. They increase, in the Gulf States, faster than do the whites. They cannot be kept for ever in slavery, since the tendencies of the modern world run strongly the other way. They cannot be absorbed into the white population, for the whites will not intermarry with them, not even in the North where they have been free for two generations. Once freed, they would be more dangerous than now, because they would not long submit to be debarred from political rights. A terrible struggle would ensue.”

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Author:James Bryce
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“It was that period in the vernal quarter when we may suppose the Dryads to be waking for the season. The vegetable world begins to move and swell and the saps to rise, till in the completest silence of lone gardens and trackless plantations, where everything seems helpless and still after the bond and slavery of frost, there are bustlings, strainings, united thrusts, and pulls-all-together, in comparison with which the powerful tugs of cranes and pulleys in a noisy city are but pigmy efforts.”

WorldMayStillsSeemsTogetherMovingUnitedPowerfulEffortCitiesSilencePeriodsSpringGardenSeasonsSlaveryComparisonWakingVegetablesQuartersHelplessAprilThrustSpringtimeFrostNoisyLoneSapPlantationsCranesPulleys
Book:FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (British Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel
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“I'm looking at the head of the household, and the house hasn't been run properly for a long time, ... Clinton was the first person ever to make a formal apology to black people for slavery, which was very warm and appreciated. But African-Americans haven't healed at all . The wound is still very open. And seeing the differences in how people live, it just puts salt in it- constantly . Seeing the way we're treated within these United States ... it burns you even more every day.”

PeopleWayFirstsPersonsLongStillsStatesRunningHouseBlackDifferencesUnitedUnited StatesSeeingHavensLong TimeSlaveryClintonWarmWoundsTreatedAfrican AmericanBlack PeopleSaltApologyHouseholdFormalAppreciatedHealedFirst Person
Author:Jill Scott
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“The population of African people in the United States is far in excess of six small European nations. Where we are going? We have to go back as best we can to where slavery and colonialism took us from. And they took us from a concept of nation management and nation maintenance. We have been so long away from home we unfortunately have forgotten how we ruled states before the foreigners got there.”

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Author:John Henrik Clarke
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“I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!”

PeopleIfsThinkingYearsCountryMatterStatesNamesNationsUnitedPayUnited StatesTwentiesNo Matter WhatSlaveryVolunteerDrainsShamefulConscriptionVolunteer Service
Author:Robert A. Heinlein
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“The fact that an African American sits in the White House at the helm of government in the United States of America on this 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation represents both phenomenal political symbolism and a victory of faith in democracy that should not be lost on any American.”

ShouldStatesFactsGovernmentAmericaPoliticalHouseLostWhiteUnitedUnited StatesDemocracyVictorySlaveryAfrican AmericanWhite HouseUnited States Of AmericaAbrahamPhenomenalSymbolismEmancipationProclamationHelmEmancipation Proclamation
Book:Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
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“I think slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.”

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Book:The Complete Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln (Biographically Annotated Edition)
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“The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world. The voice of the Rothschilds prevailed... Therefore they sent their emissaries into the field to exploit the question of slavery and to open an abyss between the two sections of the Union.”

IfsWorldLongTwoWarStatesForceNationsVoiceUnitedUnited StatesEconomicFieldsEqualEuropeDecidedIndependenceSlaveryUnionsFinancialBlockUpsetCivil WarDivisionSectionsAbyssDominationExploitsBankersNew World OrderFederationFinancial Independence
Author:Otto von Bismarck
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“Whereas, Slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United States is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked, and unjustifiable War of one portion of its citizens upon another portion; the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment, and hopeless servitude or absolute extermination; in utter disregard and violation of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence.”

WarSelfStatesUnitedExistenceUnited StatesConditionsCitizensEternalAbsolutesIndependenceSlaveryHopelessPortionsPerpetualEvidentDeclarationViolationDisregardDeclaration Of IndependenceServitudeImprisonmentExtermination
Book:The Public Life of Capt. John Brown, with an Auto-biography of His Childhood and Youth
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“Slavery existed before the formation of this Union. It derived from the Constitution that recognition which it would not have enjoyed without the confederation. If the States had not united together, there would have been no obligation on adjoining States to regard any species of property unknown to themselves.”

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Author:Jefferson Davis
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“Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment. If the guns are taken out of the hands of the people and only the pigs have guns, then it's off to the concentration camps, the gas chambers, or whatever the fascists in America come up with. One of the democratic rights of the United States, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, gives the people the right to bear arms. However, there is a greater right; the right of human dignity that gives all men the right to defend themselves.”

PeopleIfsMenGivingHumansStatesMomentsHandsAmericaGivenUnitedUnited StatesTakenGreaterRightsSubjectsArmsBearsGunDignityConstitutionSlaveryDemocraticSlaveCome UpGasConcentrationCampsAmendmentsPigsChamberFascistsSecond AmendmentHuman DignityRight To Bear ArmsConcentration CampUnarmedGas ChambersDemocratic Rights
Author:Huey Newton
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“It is up to each and every one of us to raise our voice against crimes that deprive countless victims of their liberty, dignity and human rights. We have to work together to realize the equal rights promised to all by the United Nations Charter. And we must collectively give meaning to the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that "no one shall be held in slavery or servitude"”

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Author:Ban Ki-moon
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“We should not care much whether those thus united (against slavery) were designated 'Whig,' 'Free Democrat' or something else; though we think some simple name like 'Republican' would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery.”

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Author:Horace Greeley
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“There is an unbroken line of police violence in the United States that takes us all the way back to the days of slavery, the aftermath of slavery, the development of the Ku Klux Klan. There is so much history of this racist violence that simply to bring one person to justice is not going to disturb the whole racist edifice.”

WayPersonsStatesWholeLinesJusticeUnitedUnited StatesViolenceDevelopmentPoliceSlaveryRacistAftermathUnbrokenEdificeKu Klux KlanPolice Violence
Author:Angela Davis
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