Cassius Marcellus Clay Quotes

Abolition—Yes! abolish everything on the face of the earth but this Union; free every slave—slay every traitor—burn every rebel mansion, if these things be necessary to preserve this temple of freedom to the world and to our posterity.

If you allow one single germ, one single seed of slavery to remain in the soil of America... that germ will spring up, that noxious weed will thrive, and again stifle the growth, wither the leaves, blast the flowers and poison the fair fruits of freedom.

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.

It has always been a great wrong that these men and their families should be held in bondage.

Slavery and freedom cannot exist together.

... the taint of slavery will render the cause of the South loathsome to the civilized world.

Eloquent as your speech was, it fails to meet the entire approval of those you love best. Compromises based on the idea that the preservation of the Union is more important than the liberty of nearly 4,000,000 human beings cannot be right. The alteration of the Constitution to perpetuate slavery—the enforcement of a law to recapture a poor, suffering fugitive…these compromises cannot be approved by God or supported by good men…

Do not mistake me. I am not advocating slavery. I am not justifying the wrongs we have committed on a foreign people... On the contrary, there is nothing I would not sacrifice to a practicable plan of abolishing every vestige of this moral and political depravity.

Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible.

Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men—nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul.

I think Slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.

O THOU great Wrong, that, through the slow-paced years, Didst hold thy millions fettered, and didst wield The scourge that drove the laborer to the field, And look with stony eye on human tears, Thy cruel reign is o'er;

I have sometimes been haunted with the idea that it was an imperative duty, knowing what I know and having seen what I have seen, to do all that lies in my power to show the dangers and the evils of this frightful institution. [American Slavery]

This is not a question of expediency, but of right. In antebellum days the proposition was not, “Are the blacks good enough to be free?” but, “Have they the right?” So today the question is not, “Will outrages result from freeing humanity?” but, “Has it the right to life, the means of life, the opportunities of happiness?”

… it would be perfectly right for anyone to interfere with you so far as to free those you wilfully and wickedly hold in bondage.

I wished that I were the owner of every southern slave, that I might cast off the shackles from their limbs, and witness the rapture which would excite them in the first dance of their freedom

I refuse to accept that the shackles of slavery can ever be stronger than the quest for freedom.

The very idea that human beings are held in bondage is sickening.

To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery," said I, "still thou art a bitter draught.

From the U.S. Capitol Building to the White House, our national symbols that represent freedom to so many of us, were built by people who were anything but free.

As much as I value an union of all the states, I would not admit the southern states into the union, unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade, because it would bring weakness and not strength to the union.

If it be not a sin, an open, flagrant violation of all the rules of justice and humanity, to hold these slaves in bondage, it is indeed folly to put ourselves to any trouble and expense in order to free them.

I would have the Constitution torn in shreds and scattered to the four winds of heaven. Let us destroy the Constitution and build on its ruins the temple of liberty. I have brothers in slavery. I have seen chains placed on their limbs and beheld them captive.

The topic of slavery is like an electric fence. Touch it and people will react.