Abigail Adams Quotes
I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow creature of theirs.
She was referring to the political leaders of the South who were patriots and slave owners.
Abigail Adams, 1744-1818, Writer and First Lady (John Adams), Letter to her husband
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This was written from Washington DC where slavery was legal at the time.
The issue of slavery which had been suppressed in Congress for the first decades of the nation broke out when Missouri statehood was considered. By previous agreement, slavery was not even discussed in Congress but the time period elapsed. Tallmadge not only proposed that no more slaves could come into Missouri {613176} but most shocking to the Southerners was that every person born in the new state would be free at the age of 25. In a generation, there would be no more slavery in Missouri and there would be no economic compensation for slave owners at all. The House of Representatives accepted the amendment, but it failed in the Senate. At that time, Senators were not elected by voters but were appointed by the state legislators and the Southern slave states had a disproportionate share of the senate from a population point of view. But what this quotation shows clearly that a majority of the country in 1819 were opposed to slavery and were willing to end it without compensation.
Even before we had a Constitution there was major opposition to slavery. The “price” of the American Union was the acceptance of the slavery of the South. But the hypocrisy of a country based on liberty to allow and enforce slavery was not lost on the founding fathers. Ironically the abolitionists among the founding fathers were certain that they could persuade the Southern slaveholders of the error of slavery in a few years and things would be set right in the land. Even George Washington {630626}, and Thomas Jefferson and some other slaveowners at the time wished to see its abolition. Slaveholding Southern Founding Fathers in general were so wary of the abolitionists that they achieved structural, disproportionate, power in the new Constitution to ward off the abolitionists attempts to reform slavery.
Although Wedgwood was a business man and ceramic manufacturer, he was a staunch abolitionist. He made these medallions by the thousands and gave them to all who would receive them. The text became the motto of the anti-slavery society. It was one of the first examples of a logo – a symbol for a political cause being very effective.
As absurd as this sounds to us today, it was a commonly held belief by Aristocrats, and upper class people in many societies. Some ultra conservatives in Democracies and Dictators like Franco and Mussolini.
De Tocqueville was generally concerned about what he saw as an inherent conflict between freedom and equality. Efforts to produce equality can lead in some cases to impingements on some freedoms or rights. Unlimited free rights can produce inequality and a de facto autocracy. Even in modern times America is struggling to find a proper balance.
This is a memorable historical quotations because it shows the extreme level of hypocrisy and lack of logic of which man is capable of when his way of life and world view is threatened. In this case Gordon sees the right to own slaves as a basic civil right. He does not see that the right of possessing slaves totally denies virtually all civil rights to the slave. In his and other Southern views, to assure a man’s liberty he had to have the right and freedom to deny freedom to others, torture others at will, destroy families and remove all hope and aspiration of some people.
He was making a generalization based on his historical study of nations and societies.
Our Founding Fathers were divided into three general views about slavery. There were abolitionists for whom slavery was abominable and should be eliminated—these were mostly in the Northern States but with a few Southerners. Then there was the opposite view held by most Southerners, that slavery was not only a natural and moral institution but it was an economic and social necessity. Last were those like Laurens, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Slave owners who grew up with slavery as a norm but came to see its evils and the complexity of change and reform in that area.
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Abigail Adams was the wife and closest advisor of John Adams, as well as the mother of John Quincy Adams. She is sometimes considered to have been a Founder of the United States, and is now designated as the first Second Lady and second First Lady of the United States, although these titles were not used at the time. She and Barbara Bush are the only two women to be married to one U.S. president and the mother of another.
