American Slavery Quotes

The tobacco business is a conspiracy against womanhood and manhood. It owes its origin to that scoundrel Sir Walter Raleigh, who was likewise the founder of American slavery.

American slavery was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It was a holocaust. My ancestors are slaves. Stolen from Africa. I will honor them.

Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.

I think then I may safely conclude and I firmly believe that American slavery is not only not a sin but especially commanded by God through Moses and approved by Christ through His Apostles.

Harriet Tubman fought American slavery single handed and was a pioneer in that organized effort known as the Underground Railroad.

The greatest evil of American slavery was not involuntary servitude but rather the narrative of racial differences we created to legitimate slavery. Because we never dealt with that evil, I don't think slavery ended in 1865, it just evolved.

It is said that the Negro is ignorant. But why is he ignorant? It comes with ill grace from a man who has put out my eyes to makea parade of my blindness,--to reproach me for my poverty when he has wronged me of my money.... If he is poor, what has become of the money he has been earning for the last two hundred and fifty years? Years ago it was said cotton fights and cotton conquers for American slavery. The Negro helped build up that great cotton power in the South, and in the North his sigh was in the whir of its machinery, and his blood and tears upon the warp and woof of its manufactures.

I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

If any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly, those who desire it for others

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty

I intend no modification of my oft-expressed wish that all men everywhere could be free.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it was'.

The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.

What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle - the sheet anchor of American republicanism.

So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.

I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope.

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling.

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.

Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease.

Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.

A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.

If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

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.

We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

The truth is that History, with its imposing capital H, is simply the amalgamation of many quotidian lives lived in very ordinary ways. History is always personal. If you read Holocaust survivor or American slavery survivor narratives, you realize all too well that these great Historical moments were personal to someone at some time.

The Almighty has His own purposes.

In every man's mind the good seeds of liberty are planted, and he who brings his fellow down so low, as to make him contented with a condition of slavery, commits the highest crime against God and man. Brethren, your oppressors aim to do this. They endeavor to make you as much like brutes as possible. When they have blinded the eyes of your mind-when they have embittered the sweet waters of the light which shines from the word of God-then, and not till then has American slavery done its perfect work.

Lawrence Hill, a cultural and spiritual descendant of West African griots, has used his vast storytelling talents to create an epic story that spans three continents. The Book of Negroes recites the pain, misery and liberation of one African woman, Aminata Diallo, who was stolen from her homeland and sold into American slavery. Through Aminata, Hill narrates the terrifying story of slavery and puts at the centre a female experience of the African Diaspora. I wept upon reading this story. The Book of Negroes is courageous, breathtaking, simply brilliant.

I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted, by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.

A startling and engrossing commentary on the complex actuality and continuing heritage of American slavery.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.