Montesquieu Quotes
Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat. The Spirit of the Laws. Translated and edited by Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller, and Harold S. Stone, Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 246.
Referring to the Arawak natives he found when he landed in the "new world—San Salvador:"
Miller was the first Black American admitted to a Graduate Program—Johns Hopkins—in Mathematics
Referring to Black Congressman Julian Bond: Louis Eugene Walcott
John Sutter was an immigrant to California from Switzerland where he became a Mexican citizen. Slavery was outlawed in Mexico and its territories, yet Sutter and others maintained Indians as slaves. The Roman Catholic Missions of California also kept Indian slaves. This quotation is historically important because many people never realized that slavery was prevalent in California.
He was making a generalization based on his historical study of nations and societies.
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, and political philosopher.
