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Quotes about slavery

52 quotes from 23 people

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Where there is seeming contentment with slavery, there is certain treachery to freedom.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895The Heroic Slave (1853), Madison Washington
- Freedom
Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress (1862)
- War & Peace
Because they didn’t know better, they called it “civilization,” when it was part of their slavery.
Tacitus55–120Agricola (98), Book 1, paragraph 21
- Freedom
You cannot write the bloody laws of slavery on those restless billows. The ocean, if not the land, is free.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895The Heroic Slave (1853), Madison Washington
- Freedom
I believe the slave trade to be by far the foulest crime that taints the history of mankind in any Christian or pagan country.
William Ewart Gladstone1809–1898Speech in the House of Commons (19 March 1850)
I am inclined to believe that the sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission.
James A. Garfield1831–1881Diary (8 June 1881)
Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States.
John Adams1735–1826Letter to Robert J. Evans (1819)
You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Letter to Alexander H. Stephens (1860)
God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners…
William Wilberforce1759–1833Journal entry (28 October 1787), in The Life of William Wilberforce (1838) by his sons, vol. 1
- God
Torture was necessary to maintain slavery. It was integral to slavery. You cannot have slavery without some torture or the threat of torture; and you cannot have torture without slavery.
Andrew Sullivanborn 1963“Slavery and Torture”, The Daily Dish (23 February 2007)
The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826A Summary View of the Rights of British America (July 1774)
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? (1852)
- America
- Holidays
Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery.
George Orwell1903–1950“You and the Atom Bomb”, Tribune (19 October 1945). Reprinted in George Orwell: The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters, Volume 4: In Front of Your Nose 1946–1950 (2000) by Sonia Orwell, Ian Angus, p. 9.
- Freedom
The negro worked and took his pay in religion and the lash.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895Our Composite Nationality (1869)
- Religion
The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery.
Ulysses S. Grant1822–1885Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885), Conclusion
- War & Peace