Charles Darwin Quotes
I have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England if she is the first European nation which utterly abolishes it!
Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, English Scientist, Letter to J. S. Henslow, March 1834
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In this quotation Lincoln got out of the rhetorical trap that Douglas had set for him by disclosing his personal preferences as opposed to the positions that Douglas had accused him of being pledged to. See {615827}.
Jefferson’s views, actions and inactions regarding slavery are very complex and contradictory. This quotation is one example of the many statements and activities to end slavery. Yet he never freed his own slaves (as did George Washington) and he fathered a child by one of his slaves with no attempt at freeing even her and the child. The Andrew Dickson White article is one of the first serious studies of the Jefferson contradictions regarding slavery.
Lincoln was then a Whig campaigning for his party.
The Act was passed by the Pennsylvania General Assembly whose clerk interestingly enough was Tom Paine.
The first anti-slavery newspaper published in the United States & the first journal in America to advocate immediate, unconditional emancipation
The Baptist Churches of America were split asunder by the slavery issue. Wayland, who represented both the Northern abolitionist-leaning Baptist Churches and the Southern pro slavery churches, tried to forge a middle ground whereby slavery would end by the moral enlightenment of man and his love for fellow man as opposed to by legislation or economic pressure. He successfully predicted the outcome of the conflict except for one error he made. The conflict DID end slavery. The Baptist Church finally split into southern and northern wings in 1845. To this day, the Southern Church is extremely conservative, and fundamentalist; the Northern, very liberal and modern.
Majority public opinion does not always prevail in a modern democracy as there are Constitutional limits on the prerogatives of the majority. Also leadership has played a strong role in America’s development where strong leaders have been able to do the right thing despite contrary public opinion.
Washington was from Virginia, the largest of the slave states, and he himself owned slaves. In his will he emancipated all his slaves. Most of his fellow Southern Slave owners however not only disagreed about the abolition of slavery but were adamant that slavery spread so that the abolitionists never attain a majority.
It, would automatically emancipate all children born to slaves thereafter. It did not pass. The quote is given as evidence of Jefferson’s attempts to eliminate slavery but is in marked contrast to the fact that he never freed his own slaves nor emancipated slave children (including possibly his own child with his slave Sally Hemmings). In addition, compare this with {629765} and {630991}.
It was in fact, the following year when the South rebelled to prevent a “settlement”, but the irony was that the Civil War brought the settlement—emancipation-- faster and on less favorable terms than had they not rebelled and let the political process end slavery gradually as the majority of the nation wanted and morality dictated.
Charles Robert Darwin FRS FRGS FLS FZS was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution.[I] His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and considered a foundational concept in science. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and he was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey.
