Slavery Quotes - Page 4

• Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery," said I, "still thou art a bitter draught.

  Laurence Sterne

  Art, Bitterness, Said

  Laurence Sterne, John Hall-Stevenson (1792). “A Sentimental Journey: Through France and Italy”, p.97

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• Why should workers agree to be slaves in a basically authoritarian structure? They should have control over it themselves. Why shouldn't communities have a dominant voice in running the institutions that affect their lives?

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Voice, Should Have

  Noam Chomsky, Carlos Peregrín Otero (2003). “Chomsky on Democracy & Education”, p.337, Psychology Press

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• Slavery destroys, or vitiates, or pollutes, whatever it touches. No interest of society escapes the influence of its clinging curse. It makes Southern religion a stench in the nostrils of Christendom; it makes Southern politics a libel upon all the principles of republicanism; it makes Southern literature a travesty upon the honorable profession of letters.

  Hinton Rowan Helper

  Southern, Literature, Letters

  George Fitzhugh, Hinton Rowan Helper (1960). “Ante-bellum writings of George Fitzhugh and Hinton Rowan Helper on slavery”

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• The moment this House undertakes to legislate upon this subject slavery, it dissolves the Union. Should it be my fortune to have a seat upon this floor, I will abandon it the instant the first decisive step is taken looking towards legislation of this subject. I will go home to preach, and if I can, practice, disunion, and civil war, if needs be. A revolution must ensue, and this republic sink in blood.

  James Henry Hammond

  War, Taken, Home

  James Henry Hammond (1836). “Remarks of Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, on the Question of Receiving Petitions for the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia”, p.12

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• It is up to each and every one of us to raise our voice against crimes that deprive countless victims of their liberty, dignity and human rights. We have to work together to realize the equal rights promised to all by the United Nations Charter. And we must collectively give meaning to the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that "no one shall be held in slavery or servitude"

  Ban Ki-moon

  Rights, Voice, Giving

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• The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States.

  Laurence M. Keitt

  Party, Government, Democracy

  "Congressman from South Carolina, in a speech to the House". The Congressional Globe, January 25, 1860.

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• On this International Day for the Abolition of Slavery let us reaffirm the inherent dignity of all men, women and children. And let us redouble our efforts to build societies in which slavery truly is a term for the history books.

  Ban Ki-moon

  Children, Book, Men

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• I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

  Frederick Douglass

  Song, Men, Islands

  Frederick Douglass (2009). “Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave, written by himself”, p.27, Harvard University Press

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• Once slavery in America was not seen as radical. It became, instead, a revolutionary idea that slaves should be freed. When we have lived under a pernicious power long enough, no matter how oppressive, we grow so accustomed to the yoke that its removal seems frightening, even wrong.

  Gerry Spence

  Ideas, America, Long

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• Slavery as an institution that degraded man to a thing has never died out. In some periods of history it has flourished: many civilizations have climbed to power and glory on the backs of slaves. In other times slaves have dwindled in number and economic importance. But never has slavery disappeared.

  Milton Meltzer

  Men, Numbers, Civilization

  Milton Meltzer (1971). “Slavery”, Cowles Book Co

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• But whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making towards their re- establishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rights, Color, Hopeful

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.219, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. Freedom and slavery are mental states.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Freedom, Fall

  Non-Violence in Peace and War (1949) vol. 2, ch. 5

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• 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

  Self, Justice, Ears

  On slavery in the United States, 1820, in J. C. Miller 'The Wolf by the Ears' (1977)

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• The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder's moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a priveleged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.

  Mark Twain

  Class, Names, Perception

  Mark Twain, Bernard L. Stein (1983). “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court”, p.239, Univ of California Press

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• He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce...

  Thomas Jefferson

  Christian, Kings, War

  Thomas Jefferson’s “original Rough draught” of the Declaration of Independence, founders.archives.gov. June 11 – July 4, 1776.

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• Freedom and slavery are mental states.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Motivational, Freedom, States

  'Non-Violence in Peace and War' (1949) vol. 2, ch. 5

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• Slavery is theft - theft of a life, theft of work, theft of any property or produce, theft even of the children a slave might have borne.

  Kevin Bales

  Children, Might, Theft

  Kevin Bales (2005). “Understanding Global Slavery: A Reader”, p.5, Univ of California Press

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• Willingly no one chooses the yoke of slavery.

  Aeschylus

  Yoke

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• The Americans say that we are ungrateful-but I ask them for heaven's sake, what should we be grateful to them for-for murdering our fathers and mothers?-Or do they wish us to return thanks to them for chaining and handcuffing us, branding us, cramming fire down our throats, or for keeping us in slavery, and beating us nearly or quite to death to make us work in ignorance and miseries, to support them and their families. They certainly think we are a gang of fools.

  David Walker

  Mother, Father, Grateful

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• All societies have these cases. There are many, many crime cases that remain famous from the times of the Romans. The Bible is full of crime stories. You can almost flip to a page. Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers is a crime story. The Bible is full of crime stories.

  Bill James

  Brother, Stories, Pages

  "Writer Bill James". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. May 20, 2011.

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• Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn; to increase a stranger's treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold; but, though theirs they have enroll'd me, minds are never to be sold.

  William Cowper

  Home, Men, Mind

  William Cowper, James Thomson (1851). “The Works of Cowper and Thomson: Including Many Letters and Poems Never Before Published in this Country : with a New and Interesting Memoir of the Life of Thomson”, p.122

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• The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.

  John Ruskin

  Political, Politics

  John Ruskin (1866). “The Crown of Wild Olive: Three Lectures on Work, Traffic and War”, p.113

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• Slavery is the first step towards civilization. In order to develop it is necessary that things should be much better for some and much worse for others, then those who are better off can develop at the expense of others.

  Alexander Herzen

  Order, Civilization, Firsts

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• The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Should Have, Justice

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.431, Penguin

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• The laws of certain states . . . give an ownership in the service of Negroes as personal property . . . . But being men, by the laws of God and nature, they were capable of acquiring liberty - and when the captor in war . . . thought fit to give them liberty, the gift was not only valid, but irrevocable.

  Alexander Hamilton

  War, Men, Law

  "Papers of Alexander Hamilton". Book by Alexander Hamilton, November 22, 1961.

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