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Abraham Lincoln14 quotes
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." — Abraham Lincoln · 1865It 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. — Abraham Lincoln · 1865A 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. — Abraham Lincoln · 1858If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. — Abraham Lincoln · 1864Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue. — Abraham Lincoln · 1862I 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. — Abraham Lincoln · 1862All 14 quotes →Thomas Jefferson3 quotes
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just. — Thomas Jefferson · 1785We 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 · 1820We 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 · 1820Spartacus2 quotes
All men lose when they die and all men die. But a slave and a free man lose different things. — Spartacus · 1960Death is the only freedom a slave knows. That's why he's not afraid of it. — Spartacus · 1960Charles Sumner1 quote
Where Slavery is, there Liberty cannot be; and where Liberty is, there Slavery cannot be. — Charles Sumner · 1864David Hartley (the Younger)1 quote
The slave trade is contrary to the laws of God and to the rights of men. — David Hartley (the Younger) · 1776Franklin Pierce1 quote
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 · 1853Frederick Douglass1 quote
Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. — Frederick Douglass · 1845Henry Box Brown1 quote
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 · 1849Homer1 quote
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. — Homer · 700 BCJames Buchanan1 quote
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 · 1857John Brown1 quote
I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. — John Brown · 1859Julius Lester1 quote
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 · 1968Lydia Maria Child1 quote
We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate. — Lydia Maria Child · 1833Martin Van Buren1 quote
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 · 1837Moses1 quote
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 · 1956Solomon Northup1 quote
My back is thick with scars for protesting my freedom. — Solomon Northup · 2013William Lloyd Garrison1 quote
Let Southern oppressors tremble-let their secret abettors tremble-let their Northern apologists tremble-let all the enemies of the persecuted blacks tremble. — William Lloyd Garrison · 1831