Slavery Quotes - Page 5

• It surprises people that there's actually a very large number of slaves in the world today-our best estimate is 27 million. And that is defining a slave in a very narrow way; we're not talking about sweatshop workers or people who are just poor, we're talking about people who are controlled by violence, who cannot walk away, who are being held against their will, who are being paid nothing.

  Kevin Bales

  Talking, Numbers, People

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• We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.

  James Madison

  Men, Color, Dominion

  James Madison (1836). “The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia, in 1787. Together with the Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin's Letter, Yate's Minutes, Congressional Opinions, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98-'99, and Other Illustrations of the Constitution”

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• Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labour of slaves.

  James Madison

  Wish, Littles, Depends

  James Madison (1867). “1769-1793”, p.161

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• It is due to justice; due to humanity; due to truth; due to the sympathies of our nature; in fine, to our character as a people, both abroad and at home, that they should be considered, as much as possible, in the light of human beings, and not as mere property. As such, they are acted on by our laws, and have an interest in our laws. They may be considered as making a part, though a degraded part, of the families to which they belong.

  James Madison

  Character, Home, Light

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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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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• I have conceived a higher opinion of the natural capacities of the black race than I had ever before entertained. Their apprehension seems as quick, their memory as strong, and their docility in every respect equal to that of white children.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Strong, Children, Memories

  Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson (2003). “A Benjamin Franklin Reader”, p.202, Simon and Schuster

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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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• First then, it is apparent, horribly apparent, that the slavery question rides insolently over every other everywhere - in fact that is the only question which in the least affects the results of the elections.

  Henry L. Benning

  War, Firsts, Facts

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• If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong.

  Howell Cobb

  War, Soldier, Theory

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• The defence of human liberty against the aggressions of despotic power have been always the most efficient in States where domestic slavery was to prevail.

  John C. Calhoun

  War, Liberty, States

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• Sir, I do firmly believe that domestic slavery, regulated as ours is, produces the highest toned, the purest, best organization of society that has ever existed on the face of the earth.

  James Henry Hammond

  War, Believe, Organization

  James Henry Hammond (1866). “Selections from the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond: Of South Carolina”, p.45

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• I do not wish to be misunderstood upon this subject of slavery in this country. I suppose it may long exist, and perhaps the best way for it to come to an end peaceably is for it to exist for a length of time. But I say that the spread and strengthening and perpetuation of it is an entirely different proposition. There we should in every way resist it as a wrong, treating it as a wrong, with the fixed idea that it must and will come to an end.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, Ideas, Long

  Abraham Lincoln (1989). “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 2: 1859-1865: Library of America #46”, p.17, Library of America

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• Today the large organization is lord and master, and most of its employees have been desensitized much as were the medieval peasants who never knew they were serfs.

  Ralph Nader

  Organization, Today, Medieval

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• As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.

  Marian Anderson

  Inspirational, Positive, Women

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• There is not a respectable system of civilization known to history whose foundations were not laid in the institution of domestic slavery.

  Robert M. T. Hunter

  War, Civilization, Foundation

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• A lot of work still remains but I will see the end of child labor in my lifetime.

  Kailash Satyarthi

  Children, Slave Labor, Lifetime

  "Malala Yousafzai, Kailash Satyarthi win Nobel Peace Prize". www.foxnews.com. October 10, 2014.

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• Better to starve free than be a fat slave

  Aesop

  4th Of July, Fats, Funny 4th Of July

  Barbara McClintock, Aesop (2012). “Animal Fables from Aesop”, p.48, David R. Godine Publisher

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• Slavery is no scholar, no improver; it does not love the whistle of the railroad; it does not love the newspaper, the mailbag, a college, a book or a preacher who has the absurd whim of saying what he thinks; it does not increase the white population; it does not improve the soil; everything goes to decay.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, College, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2006). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems”, p.325, Bantam Classics

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• He is sometimes slave who should be master; and sometimes master who should be slave.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Sometimes, Should, Masters

  "Oratio Pro Rege Deiotaro", XI, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 715-16,

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• ...it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best regulated administration of slavery.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Beautiful, Administration, Impossible

  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Beecher STOWE (2015). “Uncle Tom's Cabin”, p.16, Harriet Beecher Stowe

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• Men would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds.

  Pearl S. Buck

  Freedom, Men, Ties

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• I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery.

  George Washington

  4th Of July, Men, Abolition Of Slavery

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1835). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private”, p.159

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• The slave labors, but with no cheer - it is not the road to respectability, it will honor him with no citizens' trust, it brings no bread to his family, no grain to his garner, no leisure in after-days, no books or papers to his children. It opens no school-house door, builds no church, rears for him no factory, lays no keel, fills no bank, earns no acres. With sweat and toil and ignorance he consumes his life, to pour the earnings into channels from which he does no drink, into hands that never honor him. But perpetually rob and often torment.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Cheer, Children, Book

  "Modern Agitators: or, Pen Portraits of Living American Reformers". Book by David W. Bartlett, 1856.

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• O execrable son! so to aspire
  Above his brethren, to himself assuming
  Authority usurped, from God not given.
  He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,
  Dominion absolute; that right we hold
  By his donation; but man over men
  He made not lord; such title to himself
  Reserving, human left from human free.

  John Milton

  Son, Men, Titles

  John Milton, Elijah Fenton, Samuel Johnson (1821). “Paradise lost”, p.365

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