Slavery Prohibition Quotes

No person can make use of the Indians by way of Naboria or Tapia or in any other manner against their will. As We have ordered provision to be made that from henceforward the Indians in no way be made slaves, including those who until now have been enslaved against all reason and right and contrary to the provisions and instructions thereupon

There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in this State,…. Nor shall any indenture of any negro or mulatto, hereafter made and executed out of the State, or if made in the State, where the term of service exceeds one year, be of the least validity, except those given in the case of apprenticeships.

No more slave States; no slave Territories.

One thing that is not commonly taught in history classes is that the United States passed the first law of any nation outlawing slavery. That showed the world that it could be done. The state of Pennsylvania passed that law even before there were anti-slavery societies. If a slave owner from another state brought a slave to Pennsylvania and stayed for more than six months, the slave was free.

We order and command all and each of the faithful of each sex that, within the space of fifteen days of the publication of these letters in the place where they live, that they restore to their pristine liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of said Canary Islands ... who have been made subject to slavery (servituti subicere). These people are to be totally and perpetually free and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of any money

Judge Taney requests the American people to believe that the framers of the Constitution did not know their own minds. For the same Statesmen who drew up the Constitution, (which he says forbids Congress to prohibit Slavery in the Territories,) adopted the Ordinance of '87, which prohibited it in all the Territories we then had. The Ordinance was passed in July, 1787 -- the Constitution was framed in September of the same year. The same States and the same men ratified both. And one of the first acts of the first Congress under the Constitution was to reaffirm the Ordinance, and to again prohibit Slavery! Which are the best interpreters of the Constitution, the opinions of Mr. Chief Justice Taney, or the ACTS of Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Monroe, Adams, and Washington?

Declare for such an amendment of the Constitution as will positively prohibit African slavery in the United States.

We have been informed that thou hast forbidden the trading in slaves... This, verily, is what God hath enjoined in this wondrous Revelation. God hath, truly, destined a reward for thee, because of this. He, verily, will pay the doer of good, whether man or woman, his due recompense

No person hereafter imported into this State from Africa ought to be held in slavery under any presence whatever; and no negro, Indian, or mulatto slave ought to be brought into this State, for sale, from any part of the world.

We must make good in essence as well as in form Madison's avowal that "the word slave ought not to appear in the Constitution"; and we must even go further and decree that only local law, and not that time-honored instrument [the Constitution], shall shelter a slave-holder.

It [the 13th Amendment] is not confined to African slavery alone. It is general and universal in its application. Slavery of white men as well as of black men is prohibited, and not merely slavery in the strict sense of the term, but involuntary servitude in every form

Two peculiar customs: both alcohol and dark-skinned people were prohibited. No slavery is allowed, nor negroes. As a sanctuary for free white people, Georgia would not permit slaves, for slaves starve the poor laborer.

Opposition to the admission of a state into the union with a constitution prohibiting slavery, on account of such prohibition, is a policy wholly unjustifiable and unstatesmanlike, and in violation of that spirit of concession and compromise by which alone the federal constitution was, adopted, and by which alone it can be perpetuated.

They all agree, they are all unanimous in Congress, in the States, on the rostrum, in the sanctuary - everywhere they declare that slavery shall not go into the Territories.

The sovereign general Constituent Congress of the United Mexican States has been pleased to decree the following: 1. Commerce and traffic in slaves, proceeding from any country and under any flag whatsoever, is forever prohibited in the territory of the United Mexican States. 2. Slaves that are introduced contrary to the tenor of the above … are free in virtue of the mere act of treading Mexican territory