We can apply to slavery no worse name than its own. Men have always shrunk instinctively from this state, as the most degraded. No punishment, save death, has been more dreaded; and, to avoid it, death has often been endured. Slavery virtually dissolves the domestic relations. It ruptures the most sacred ties upon earth. It violates home. It lacerates best affections; produces and gives license to cruelty; compels the master systematically to degrade the mind of the slave; and to resist that improvement which is the design and end of the Creator.—Millions may rise up and tell me that the slave suffers little from cruelty. I know too much of human nature, human history, and human passion, to believe them.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. Weeven we herehold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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 (b.1934) American Lawyer, Consumer Activist
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. The hour of emancipation must come; but whether it will be brought on by the generous energies of our own minds, or by the bloody scenes of St. Domingo, is a leaf of our history not yet turned over. The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
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 (1732–99) American Head of State, Military Leader
Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.
—David Garrick (1717–79) English Actor, Theatre Manager, Playwright
Slavery is no more sinful, by the Christian code, than it is sinful to wear a whole coat, while another is in tatters, to eat a better meal than a neighbor, or otherwise to enjoy ease and plenty, while our fellow creatures are suffering and in want.
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American Novelist
Here lies the evil of slavery: Its whips, imprisonments, and even the horrors of the middle passage, are not to be named, in comparison with the extinction of the proper consciousness of a human being—with the degradation of a man into a brute.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
Every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has a right to but himself.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
There is a law above all human enactments, written upon the heart by the finger of God; and while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) Scottish Jurist, Politician
Whatever makes man a slave takes half his worth away.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Progress and reaction have both turned out to be swindles. Seemingly, there is nothing left but quietism—robbing reality of its terrors by simply submitting to it.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery, thou art a bitter draught.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
Slavery is a state so improper, so degrading, so ruinous to the feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not to be suffered to exist.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Thy treasures of gold
Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou hast sold;
Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear
The crack of the whip, and the footsteps of fear.
—Lydia Maria Child (1802–80) American Abolitionist, Writer
Men would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights Activist
The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder’s moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Slavery may, perhaps, be best compared to the infantile disease of measles; a complaint which so commonly attacks the young of humanity in their infancy, and when gone through at that period leaves behind it so few fatal marks; but which when it normally attacks the fully developed adult becomes one of the most virulent and toxic of diseases, often permanently poisoning the constitution where it does not end in death.
—Olive Schreiner (1855–1920) South African Writer, Feminist
The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator, to the whole human race; and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice. Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society.
—Alexander Hamilton (c.1757–1804) American Federalist Politician, Statesman
If every day a man takes orders in silence from an incompetent superior, if every day he solemnly performs ritual acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions and is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of humiliation.
—Vaclav Havel (1936–2011) Czech Dramatist, Statesman
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
That execrable sum of all villainies commonly called the slave-trade.
—John Wesley (1703–91) British Methodist Religious Leader, Preacher, Theologian
If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.
—Wayne Dyer (b.1940) American Motivational Writer, Author, Motivational Speaker
The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.
—Diogenes Laertius (f.3rd Century CE) Biographer of the Greek Philosophers
To relive the relationship between owner and slave we can consider how we treat our cars and dogs—a dog exercising a somewhat similar leverage on our mercies and an automobile being comparable in value to a slave in those days.
—Edward Hoagland (b.1932) American Essayist, Novelist
Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship, with a procession of expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which closely-packed heathen are brought over to enjoy the light of the Gospel.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author
Slavery is founded on the selfishness of man’s nature—opposition to it on his love of justice. These principles are in eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
From my earliest youth I have regarded slavery as a great moral and political evil.—I think it unjust, repugnant to the natural, equality of mankind, founded only in superior power; a standing and permanent conquest by the stronger over the weaker.—All pretence of defending it on the ground of different races, I have ever condemned, and have even said that if the black race is weaker, that is a reason against and not for its subjection and oppression.—In a religious point of view, I have ever regarded and spoken of it, not as subject to any express denunciation, either in the Old Testament or the New, but as opposed to the whole spirit of the gospel, and to the teachings of Jesus Christ.—The religion of Christ is a religion of kindness, justice, and brotherly love:—but slavery is not kindly affectionate; it does not seek another’s and not its own; it does not let the oppressed go free; it is but a continual act of oppression.
—Daniel Webster (1782–1852) American Statesman, Lawyer
Slavery is an atrocious debasement of human nature.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Most people seek after what they do not possess and are enslaved by the very things they want to acquire.
—Anwar el-Sadat (1918–81) Egyptian Head of State, Political leader
Never may an act of possession be exercised upon a free being; the exclusive possession of a woman is no less unjust than the possession of slaves; all men are born free, all have equal rights: never should we lose sight of those principles; according to which never may there be granted to one sex the legitimate right to lay monopolizing hands upon the other, and never may one of the sexes, or classes, arbitrarily possess the other.
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Political leader, Revolutionary, Novelist, Poet, Critic
My reason is not framed to bend or stoop: my knees are.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
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 (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness and of love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage to irremediable weakness.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging to the master—so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil—so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best-regulated administration of slavery.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author
The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
It is observed by Homer that a man loses half his virtue the day he becomes a slave; he might have added, with truth, that he is likely to lose more than half when he becomes a slave-master.
—Richard Whately (1787–1863) English Philosopher, Theologian
The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The creation of the spiritual was no accident. It was a creation born of necessity, so that the slave might more adequately adjust himself to the conditions of the New World.
—Benjamin Mays (1894–1984) American Minister, Educator, Scholar, Social Activist
There’re two people in the world that are not likeable: a master and a slave.
—Nikki Giovanni (b.1943) American Poet, Writer, Activist, Educator
Slavery is contrary to the fundamental law of all societies.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist
Englishmen will never be slaves; they are free to do whatever the Government and public opinion allow them to do.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me call him what I will.
—Henry George (1839–97) American Political Economist, Journalist
I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum?
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master’s commands when, in fact, he is obliged to. Most slaves of habit suffer from this delusion and so do some writers, enslaved by an all too “personal” style.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
It is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter