Slavery Oppression Quotes

Whether permitted to live to witness the abolition of slavery or not, I felt assured that, as I demanded nothing that was not clearly in accordance with justice and humanity, some time or other, if remembered at all, I should stand vindicated in the eyes of my countrymen.

… an effort for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected, and, indeed, during the regal government nothing liberal could expect success.

Here before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.

The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects.

Barbary is hell – So, alas, is all America south of Pennsylvania; for oppression, and slavery, and misery, are there!

I have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England if she is the first European nation which utterly abolishes it!

God knows that I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil, for which we are not responsible, and we must endure it, and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the constitution, till we can get rid of it without destroying the last hope of free government in the world.

'A living dog is better than a dead lion.' Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything about it.

I am under a cloud now because I refuse to defend slavery as a natural right, and have received also my ‘warning’ from a portion of the Catholic public.

Our natural, God-given right of free-speech, though constitutionally recognized as sacred in every part of the country, can be exercised in the slaveholding States only at the peril of our lives. Slavery cannot bear one ray of light, or the slightest criticism.

Many slaves on this continent are oppressed, and their cries have reached the ears of the Most High. Such are the purity and certainty of his judgments, that he cannot be partial in our favor.

[The Underground Railroad] demonstrated to northerners, white northerners, who were not committed to the end of slavery, how horrendous an institution slavery was. How much black people desired freedom. What they would do, the extent they would do to gain that freedom. This against the slave holders' propaganda that slavery was a benevolent institution and that black people were happy as slaves.

It is manifestly vital to the success of the anti-slavery cause, that the authority and influence of proslavery, especially of slaveholding, ministers should be destroyed.

This is one of the last great battles with slavery. Driven from these legislative chambers, driven from the field of war, this monstrous power has found a refuge in the Executive Mansion, where, in utter disregard of the Constitution and laws, it seeks to exercise its ancient far reaching sway.... Andrew Johnson is the impersonation of the tyrannical slave power. In him it lives again.

There never was an anti-slavery movement until white Christians—Englishmen and Americans—created one.

We [Republicans] have to fight this battle [against slavery] upon principle alone, so I hope those with whom I am surrounded have principle enough to nerve themselves for the task, and leave nothing undone that can fairly be done to bring about the right result.