Paul Robeson Quotes
Sometimes great injustices may be inflicted on the minority when the majority is in the pursuit of a great and just cause.
Paul Robeson, 1898-1976, Entertainer, Pacifist and Civil Rights Leader, Statement to his son Paul Jr regarding the execution of his friend Ignaty Kazahov
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
AI Explanation: This is a famous philosophical observation attributed to the early Christian author Lactantius. It suggests that true poverty isn't about a lack of material wealth, but rather being denied fairness, equality, or your rightful claims.
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.
“Factions” was the word for political parties then.
A delegation from Sinn Fein, headed by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, had negotiated a treaty of Irish Independence except that it did not cover Northern Ireland where the majority of the people wanted to stay a part of Britain. For 700 years, the Irish had fought for independence, and finally they got it for the vast majority of Ireland and the overwhelming majority of the Catholics of Ireland. The alternative to agreeing to the treaty was to continue the war between the IRA and the British Troops. At the time, the IRA was just about totally beaten and probably could not hold out another month. De Valera, a very shrewd politician, as the leader of Sinn Fein (and the IRA) would normally have headed the Irish Delegation. But he chose not to because he realized that they would never get independence for all 32 counties of Ireland as the British would not leave the Northern Ireland Protestants to their fates against their will. The best Ireland could get was Independence for all of Catholic majority Ireland. And he knew that public opinion would oppose giving up even one county becuse that was what the leaders had told the people for years. So De Valera let his two associates take the popular blame after he denounced the treaty with his famous quotation {639690}. Shortly after that, Michael Collins, the brilliant military Commander of the IRA who signed the treaty was assassinated. To many, it was as if De Valera had pulled the trigger. The treaty was ratified by a 7 vote margin by the Dail as there was no army left to fight, and the angry Irish electorate voted for De Valera as Ireland’s first President. The politician had won; the patriot had died. De Valera continued to speak out against the Dail Majority for the “immoral” act of ratifying the treaty
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American bass baritone concert artist and stage and film actor who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political activism. Educated at Rutgers College and Columbia University, he was a star athlete in his youth. He also studied Swahili and phonetics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in 1934. His political activities began with his involvement with unemployed workers and anti-imperialist students whom he met in Britain and continued with support for the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War and his opposition to fascism. In the United States he became active in the Civil Rights Movement and other social justice campaigns. His sympathies for the Soviet Union and for communism, and his criticism of the United States government and its foreign policies, caused him to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era.
