William H. Seward Quotes

But you answer, that the Constitution recognizes property in slaves. It would be sufficient, then, to reply, that this constitutional recognition must be void, because it is repugnant to the law of nature and of nations.

I deem it established, then, that the Constitution does not recognize property in man, but leaves that question, as between the states, to the law of nature and of nations.

The law of the Creator, which invests every human being with an inalienable title to freedom, cannot be repealed by any interior law which asserts that man is property.

Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered. It was purposely so framed as to give no claim, no sanction to the claim, of property in man. If in its origin slavery had any relation to the government, it was only as the scaffolding to the magnificent structure, to be removed as soon as the building was completed.

It has always been a great wrong that these men and their families should be held in bondage. We of the North have hitherto acquiesced in it, lest, in the endeavor to redress it in violation of the Constitution, greater evils might ensue.

We can constitutionally extirpate slavery at this time.

You cannot deprive somebody of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, because that is a right - constitutional right.

Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond the Constitution.

Whereas I am clearly convinced that the buying and selling of men of what color soever is contrary to the Divine Mind manifest in the conscience of all men however some may smother and neglect its reprovings, and being also made sensible that the holding of negroes in slavery however kindly treated has a tendency to encourage the iniquitous practice of importing them from their native country and is contrary to that justice, mercy, and humanity enjoined as the duty of every Christian, I do therefore by these presents for myself, my heirs etc. manumit and set free the following negroes being all I am possessed of or any ways interested in.

What vested rights so high or so sacred as a man’s right to himself, to his wife and children, to his liberty, and to the fruits of his own industry? Did not our fathers declare that those rights were inalienable?

There is no power on earth that has the right to reduce them to slavery …. The United States is not a slave-catcher for foreign slave holders.

The Constitution of the United States is a pro slavery instrument, and no consistent anti slavery person should either vote or hold office under it

Tell me not of rights; talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves! I deny the right--I acknowledge not the property! The principles, the feelings of our nature, rise in rebellion against it

From and after the promulgation of the Constitution in the capital of each district, no one shall be born a slave in the state, and after six months the introduction of slaves under any pretext shall not be permitted.

All slaves that shall enter our kingdom, by land or by sea, shall be free; and further order, that every one born a slave in our dominions shall be considered as free from the very instant of his birth, and that he shall neither be sold nor bought

I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away

The rights to life, liberty and property were not meant to be subject to the vagaries of majority rule.

I love the Constitution. But it's still a document, meant to protect human beings and ensure their life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is not a liberty of circumstance, conceded to us alone, that we wish; it is the adoption absolute of the principle that no man, born red, black or white, can be the property of his fellow man.

The Convention thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.

Emancipation - what is meant by it? Simply that the slaves shall cease to be held as property and shall henceforth be held and treated as human beings. Simply, that we should take our feet from off their necks.

The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it.

This country was founded upon the principle that we are all endowed with certain inalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - those rights are what make America great, and they belong to each and every one of us.

Even if the Constitution of the United States had intended to recognize slavery, as a constitutional state institution, such intended recognition would have failed of effect, and been legally void, because slavery then had no constitutional existence to be recognized.

I'm a human being I'm not a piece of property. I am not a consignment of goods.