Historical voices

I am here, also, because the slaveholders do not want me to be here; they would rather that I were not here.

I am here, because you have an influence on America that no other nation can have.

It is a system of such gigantic evil, so strong, so overwhelming in its power, that no one nation is equal to its removal.

He has been the prey—the common prey—of Christendom for the last three hundred years, and it is but right, it is but just, it is but proper, that his wrongs should be known throughout the world.

All the feelings, all the susceptibilities, all the capacities, which you have, he has.

My next answer is, that the slave is a man, and, as such, is entitled to your sympathy as a brother.

My answer is, first, that slavery is the common enemy of mankind, and all mankind should be made acquainted with its abominable character.

It is because I love this religion that I hate the slaveholding, the woman-whipping, the mind-darkening, the soul-destroying religion that exists in the southern states of America.

If you claim to act for yourself, it says, allow your neighbors the same right.

If you claim a right to think for yourself, it says, allow your neighbors the same right.

If you demand liberty to yourself, it says, grant it to your neighbors.

I love that religion that is based upon the glorious principle, of love to God and love to man; which makes its followers do unto others as they themselves would be done by.

I love that religion that makes it the duty of its disciples to visit the father less and the widow in their affliction.

I love that religion that sends its votaries to bind up the wounds of him that has fallen among thieves.

I love that religion that comes from above, in the “wisdom of God,” which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.

This I conceive to be the darkest feature of slavery, and the most difficult to attack, because it is identified with religion, and exposes those who denounce it to the charge of infidelity.

Whips, chains, gags, and thumb-screws have all lain under the droppings of the sanctuary, and instead of rusting from off the limbs of the bondman, those droppings have served to preserve them in all their strength.

Ministers of religion come forward and torture the hallowed pages of inspired wisdom to sanction the bloody deed.

Yes, the pulpit there stands up as the great defender of this cursed institution, as it is called.

Why, we have slavery made part of the religion of the land.

While America is printing tracts and bibles; sending missionaries abroad to convert the heathen; expending her money in various ways for the promotion of the gospel in foreign lands—the slave not only lies forgotten, uncared for, but is…

I have to inform you that the religion of the southern states, at this time, is the great supporter, the great sanctioner of the bloody atrocities to which I have referred.

No law whatever will bring the guilty man to justice for the crime.

I think no better exposure of slavery can be made than is made by the laws of the states in which slavery exists.