Sourced and curated.

Let Southern oppressors tremble-let their secret abettors tremble-let their Northern apologists tremble-let all the enemies of the persecuted blacks tremble.

1860

★ 1.2

Essay · Newspaper

William Lloyd Garrison

To the Public · 1831

★ 1.9

Speech

The slave trade is contrary to the laws of God and to the rights of men.

David Hartley (the Younger)

1776

★ 1.9

The last, perhaps the greatest, of the prominent sources of discord and disaster supposed to lurk in our political condition was the institution of domestic slavery.

Martin Van Buren

Inaugural Address of Martin van Buren · 1837

★ 1.9

I believe that involuntary servitude, as it exists in different States of this Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right, and that the States where it exists are entitled to efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional provisions.

Franklin Pierce

Inaugural Address of Franklin Pierce · 1853

★ 1.9

All agree that under the Constitution slavery in the States is beyond the reach of any human power except that of the respective States themselves wherein it exists.

James Buchanan

Inaugural Address of James Buchanan · 1857

★ 1.9

I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.

John Brown

1859

★ 1.9

We were proclaiming ourselves political hypocrites before the world, by thus fostering Human Slavery and proclaiming ourselves, at the same time, the sole friends of Human Freedom.

1854

★ 2.0

This government was instituted to secure the blessings of freedom, and…slavery is an unqualified evil to the negro, to the white man, to the soil, and to the State.

Death is the only freedom a slave knows. That's why he's not afraid of it.

1858

★ 2.0

Film · Epic (film) · Historical drama (film) · Epic · Historical drama

Spartacus

Spartacus · 1960

★ 2.1

To be a slave was to be a human being under conditions in which that humanity was denied. They were not slaves. They were people. Their condition was slavery.

Julius Lester

To Be a Slave · 1968

★ 2.6

Legal opinion · Legal writing

The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law.

William Murray, Lord Mansfield

Somerset v. Stewart · 1771

★ 3.5

Where Slavery is, there Liberty cannot be; and where Liberty is, there Slavery cannot be.

Charles Sumner

1864

★ 3.5

We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.

Lydia Maria Child

An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans · 1833

★ 3.6

Slave narrative · Autobiography and memoir

I entered the world a slave-in the midst of a country whose most honoured writings declare that all men have a right to liberty.

Henry Box Brown

1849

★ 3.6

Film · Epic (film) · Drama (film) · Epic · Drama

The evil that men should turn their brothers into beasts of burden, to slave and suffer in dumb anguish, to be stripped of spirit, and hope, and faith—only because they are of another race, another creed. If there is a god, he did not mean this to be so.

Moses

The Ten Commandments · 1956

★ 3.6

I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world—enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites—causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

1854

★ 3.7

Personal journal

1858

★ 3.7

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth.

All men lose when they die and all men die. But a slave and a free man lose different things.

1862

★ 3.7

Film · Epic (film) · Historical drama (film) · Epic · Historical drama

Spartacus

Spartacus · 1960

★ 3.7

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.

Constitution of the United States

1787

★ 3.8

Letter

We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

Thomas Jefferson

1820

★ 3.8

Letter

We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

Thomas Jefferson

1820

★ 3.8

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature—opposition to it, is [in?] his love of justice.

My back is thick with scars for protesting my freedom.

1854

★ 3.8

Film · Historical drama (film) · Drama (film) · Historical drama · Drama

Solomon Northup

12 Years a Slave · 2013

★ 3.8

Autobiography and memoir

Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.

Frederick Douglass

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass · 1845

★ 3.9

Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue.

1862

★ 5.5

I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

Emancipation Proclamation · 1862

★ 5.5

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?

If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln · 1865

★ 5.5

Letter · Political speech

I should rather labor as another's serf, in the home of a man without fortune, one whose livelihood was meager, than rule over all the departed dead.

1864

★ 5.5

Poem · Epic poem

Homer

The Odyssey · 700 BC

★ 5.7

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.

1858

★ 7.0

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. The Almighty has His own purposes.

Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln · 1865

★ 7.1

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln · 1865

★ 7.2