Historical voices

I think I would not hold one in slavery at any rate, yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon.

We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North and become tip-top Abolitionists, while some Northern ones go South and become most cruel slave-masters.

Doubtless there are individuals on both sides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances, and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew if it were out of existence.

They are just what we would be in their situation.

I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself.

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, real, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate.

The slave whom you cannot drive with the lash to break seventy-five pounds of hemp in a day, if you will task him to break a hundred, and promise him pay for all he does over, he will break you a hundred and fifty.

The power of hope upon human exertion and happiness is wonderful.

Free labour has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope.

Originally a curse for transgression upon the whole race, when, as by slavery, it is concentrated on a part only, it becomes the double-refined curse of God upon his creatures.

As labour is the common burden of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burden on to the shoulders of others is the great durable curse of the race.

Advancement--improvement in condition--is the order of things in a society of equals.

The hired labourer of yesterday labours on his own account to-day, and will hire others to labour for him to-morrow.

There is no permanent class of hired labourers amongst us.

Equality in society alike beats inequality, whether the latter be of the British aristocratic sort or of the domestic slavery sort.

And if he can make it his interest he has the right to enslave you.

But, say you, it is a question of interest, and if you make it your interest you have the right to enslave another.

You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and therefore have the right to enslave them?

By this rule you are to be slave to the first man you meet with a fairer skin than your own.

It is colour, then; the lighter having the right to enslave the darker?

If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may of right enslave B, why may not B snatch the same argument and prove equally that he may enslave A?

He valued life only as a means of fulfilling duty, and truly it may be said of him, that he feared none but God.

His courage and his constancy were never surpassed by man.

Free from prejudices, his large mind sympathized with all classes of the realm.