quotations about slavery
I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance. Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have staid in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not quite clean; I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master's eye. ... And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty.
CHARLES DARWIN
The Voyage of the Beagle
Slavery is an infringement of two laws -- of Divine law which proclaims the equality of human nature before God, and of human law which declares an equality of political rights.
ALBERT BRISBANE
Social Destiny of Man
It seemed to me much more than the mere question whether the negro should remain in slavery; that it really involved the question whether liberty should be strangled on the continent dedicated to liberty.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
In ancient times, as to-day in Asia and Africa, slaves were simply called slaves. In the Middle Ages, they took the name of "serfs", to-day they are called "wage-earners".
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
Marxism, Freedom and the State
Once slavery in America was not seen as radical. It became, instead, a revolutionary idea that slaves should be freed. When we have lived under a pernicious power long enough, no matter how oppressive, we grow so accustomed to the yoke that its removal seems frightening, even wrong.
GERRY L. SPENCE
From Freedom to Slavery
Willingly no one chooses the yoke of slavery.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
X is not my real name, but if you study history you'll find why no black man in the western hemisphere knows his real name. Some of his ancestors kidnapped our ancestors from Africa, and took us into the western hemisphere and sold us there. And our names were stripped from us and so today we don't know who we really are. I am one of those who admit it and so I just put X up there to keep from wearing his name.
MALCOLM X
Oxford Union Debate, December 3, 1964
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
PATRICK HENRY
Speech at the Second Virginia Convention at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia, March 23, 1775
I never mean, unless some particular circumstance should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to John Francis Mercer, September 9, 1786
Imprisoned with the pharaohs, i notice no race predominates, but slavery's still the norm, sarcophagus, sarcophagus, sarcophagus,flesh-consumers of the great house
RUDIMENTARY PENI
"Sarcophagus"
Let every voice be thunder, let every heart beat strong
Until all tyrants perish our work shall not be done
Let not our memories fail us the lost year shall be found
Let slavery's chains be broken the whole wide world around.
PETER, PAUL & MARY
"Because All Men Are Brothers"
If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable -- and this is why we are the enemies of the State.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
"Statism and Anarchy"
In most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man. It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion. An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the liberty of his children.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Life of Samuel Johnson, September 23, 1777
Gluttonized foundation
Well versed in the art of slavery
Patrons of feudal interest
Scurry around a concrete beehive
Crazed civilization frantically going nowhere
DISCORDANCE AXIS
"Empire"
The man born and bred a slave, even if freed, never loses wholly the feeling or manner of a slave.
MARY CLEMMER AMES
Outlines of Men, Women, and Things
Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.... The subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
Democracy in America
There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782
All mankind is divided, as it was at all times and is still, into slaves and freemen; for whoever has not two-thirds of his day for himself is a slave, be he otherwise whatever he likes, statesman, merchant, official, or scholar.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Complete Works: The First Complete and Authorised English Translation, Volume 6
Slavery is a continual and permanent violation of human rights.
DANIEL WEBSTER
letter to Rev. Mr. Furness, February 15, 1850
Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.
LAURENCE STERNE
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy