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Quotes about slavery

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This country was built on rape, slavery, murder, degradation and affiliation with crime.
Mike Tysonborn 1966
- America
Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail.
Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968
- Race
He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.
Augustine of Hippo354–430
- Freedom
- Virtue
I think it’s insulting to people who have a heritage of slavery to compare the homosexual experience in America to that. It’s an unfortunate, cheap attempt to piggyback on something and to co-opt life experiences of others, claim that you’ve experienced them yourselves so that you can advance a cause.
Rush Limbaugh1951–2021
- Race
“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.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865A House Divided (1858)
- America
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.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Definition of Democracy; see Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 532
- Democracy
From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the Portion, It is still the Birthright of all men.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790Petition from the Pennsylvania Society (1790)
- Liberty
Slavery is, as you justly complain, a sad blot on our free country.
James Madison1751–1836Letter to Lafayette (1821)
Where slavery exists, the republican theory becomes still more fallacious.
James Madison1751–1836Vices of the Political System of the United States (April 1787), Papers 9:350-51
Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be more dishonorable to the National character than to say nothing about it in the Constitution.
James Madison1751–1836Madison’s notes (25 August 1787)
Slavery in this Country I have seen hanging over it like a black cloud for half a century…
John Adams1735–1826Letter to Thomas Jefferson (3 February 1821), as quoted in Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage (New York: Norton, 1993), p. 138
We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, self-preservation in the other.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826On slavery, in a letter to John Holmes (22 April 1820)
The Confederacy stands for slavery and the Union for freedom.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Private conversation (January 1862)
- Freedom
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.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Letter to George Robertson (15 August 1855)
No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895Speech at Civil Rights Mass Meeting, Washington, D.C. (22 October 1883).