Dalton Trumbo Quotes
We'll free every slave in every town and region. Can anybody get a bigger army than that?
Trumbo, Dalton, screenwriter. Spartacus. Universal Pictures, 1960.
These lines were quoted by W. E. B. Dubois in his The Souls of Black Folk, 1905
This prophecy written in the later years of Jefferson’s life turned out to be all too true. St. Domingo was an Island in the Caribbean where slavery produced a bloody war. The American Civil War would be far worse.
The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by the commander in chief as a wartime necessity. Any future President could undo that proclamation. However, the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery forever regardless of the desires of the Congress, Presidents, or State governments.
Under the pre-Civil War Southern economic system the poor whites had little chance of upward mobility and were in many wars as poorly off as slaves. Johnson saw this reform as much more important than the emancipation of the Negro.
The first sentence is inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC. The last two sentences are rarely quoted.
One of the most amazing things about Abraham Lincoln is the way he grew and matured over time. In 1854 he was not sure that the Negro could be the equal of the white. As he met more Black leaders, saw more, reflected more, and had more responsibility, he grew and developed his views on race. But it was statements like this that led to the great distrust that the very strong abolitionists like Wendell Phillips had in him.
James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist who scripted many award-winning films, including Roman Holiday (1953), Exodus, Spartacus (both 1960), and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944). One of the Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry.
