Book of Exodus Quotes

So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.

Slavery is a wrong to each individual enslaved; and not merely to the first of a series. Natural law, therefore, as much forbids the enslaving of the child, as if the wrong of enslaving the parent had never been perpetrated.

Under the penalty of excommunication … [if] anyone have or detain such Indian slaves they must give up all craft and deceit, set the slaves completely free and in the future neither make nor retain slaves in any way.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude unless for the punishment of crime shall ever be tolerated in this state

Every slave is a stolen man.

It having come to the knowledge of the Commander in Chief of the District that certain persons have been and still are imprisoning and holding to service Indians against their will and without any legal contract for service. It is thereby ordered that all persons so holding or detaining Indians shall release them, and permit them to return to their own homes.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

There shall never be any bond slavery, villeinage, nor captivity among us, unless it be lawful captives, taken in just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are sold to us, and these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God established in Israel requires.

To go as pirates and catch up poor Negroes or people of another land, that never forfeited life or liberty, and to make them slaves, and sell them, is one of the worst kinds of thievery in the world.

Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery. It is a scourge for humanity, and America must project its values and protect vulnerable persons.

We must show new energy in fighting back an old evil. Nearly two centuries after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, and more than a century after slavery was officially ended in its last strongholds, the trade in human beings for any purpose must not be allowed to thrive in our time.

Slavery can never be abolished.

Modern slavery - be it bonded labor, involuntary servitude, or sexual slavery - is a crime and cannot be tolerated in any culture, community, or country ... [It] is an affront to our values and our commitment to human rights.

There's still nearly the same amount of slavery, if not more, in the world today, as there was at the height of the slave trade.

Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North.

We're also the only country that has the Death Penalty. That's something to boast about, isn't it?

Why is Slavery so much condemn'd and strove against in one Case, and so highly applauded and held so necessary and so sacred in another?

Slavery was the betrayal of the American Promise at the moment that promise was made.

Slavery is something that affects all of us. It's all of our history.

When people think of slavery, they think of an era from the distant past. Grainy photographs from Civil War times. And yet it goes on.

The Soul of man is made an article of merchandize by his fellow man and can such a land be happy? No! Happyness does not dwell in any land that is scard by the blighting curse of Slavery.

I am amazed at the facility with which some men follow in the wake of slavery.

The first, and overarching, count in the new indictment is that slavery permitted one group of people to exercise unrestrained personal domination over another group of people.

I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.

Child slavery is a crime against humanity. Humanity itself is at stake here. A lot of work still remains, but I will see the end of child labor in my lifetime.