Victor Hugo Quotes
It is evident that slavery wrested its prey from the eaters of human flesh, but it has only progressed in regard to cannibalism; whenever it finds itself in the presence of Christianism, and, above all, of human reason, it must abdicate under penalty of becoming monstrous.--The persistency of the Southern States in slavery is the greatest moral deformity of the nineteenth century
Victor Hugo, 1802-1885, French Writer, Member of the Constituent Assembly & the National Assembly at Bordeaux, Letter to George Francis Train February 25, 1861
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
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.
Benezet was a Huguenot whose family had been persecuted in France. He identified with the cause of Blacks, Indians and Acadians. He was also one of the first leaders of the American Peace Movement.
As an entertainer she had toured much of the world and seen American slavery and that of some other nations. She became a staunch abolitionist and like entertainers in the 20th and 21st centuries she used her celebrity to give anti-slavery lectures and perform for audiences where she donated the proceeds of the event to the abolition cause. She is a particularly interesting political figure in that she seems to be one of the first entertainers to perform for a social cause and become an activist.
The editorial was in response to the pro-slavery speeches in the Senate of John C. Calhoun.
As a British Loyalist officer, he and his men were dispatched to Savannah, Georgia. There he saw the Southern version of slavery for the first time and was shocked at the cruelty. At the end of the Revolutionary war, he and many other loyalists fled to Canada and began his political career, then representing Britain in the Caribbean. See also {591379}.
Later changed the name to The Emancipator. Many are surprised that a Southern State would have had such strong abolitionist sentiment so early, but East Tennessee was a hotbed of abolition. See {614117} and {614069}
Victor-Marie Hugo was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote abundantly in an exceptional variety of genres: lyrics, satires, epics, philosophical poems, epigrams, novels, history, critical essays, political speeches, funeral orations, diaries, letters public and private, as well as dramas in verse and prose.
