Quotes About Slavery

Suffice it to say, during the whole long day I came not to the conclusion, even once, that the southern slave, fed, clothed, whipped and protected by his master, is happier than the free colored citizen of the North. To that conclusion I have never since arrived.

Oh! how heavily the weight of slavery pressed upon me then. I must toil day after day, endure abuse and taunts and scoffs, sleep on the hard ground, live on the coarsest fare, and not only this, but live the slave of a blood-seeking wretch, of whom I must stand henceforth in continued fear and dread.

There may be humane masters, as there certainly are inhuman ones—there may be slaves well-clothed, well-fed, and happy, as there surely are those half-clad, half-starved and miserable; nevertheless, the institution that tolerates such wrong and inhumanity as I have witnessed, is a cruel, unjust, and barbarous one. Men

It is the literal, unvarnished truth, that the crack of the lash, and the shrieking of the slaves, can be heard from dark till bed time, on Epps' plantation, any day almost during the entire period of the cotton-picking season.

doubt not he understood then better than I did, the danger and the penalty of selling a free man into slavery. He felt the necessity of closing my mouth against the crime he knew he was committing.

12 Years a Slave

It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives. He cannot withstand the influence of habit and associations that surround him. Taught from earliest childhood, by all that he sees and hears, that the rod is for the slave's back, he will not be apt to change his opinions in maturer years.

The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave.

Therefore the good man, although he is a slave, is free; but the bad man, even if he reigns, is a slave.

Nevermore shall men make slaves of others! Not in Asgard--not on Earth--not any place where the hammer of Thor can be swung--or where men of good faith hold freedom dear!

Ninety percent of the population were serfs who could be beaten, killed, transported away from their family, or sold for a gambling debt or as collateral for a loan (a healthy male at the time would fetch between 200 and 500 rubles in the Moscow market; a good-looking young female, several times that).

Once upon a time, we were Africans involved in a unique lexicon of beliefs, lore, stories, and customs that were designed to help integrate us into an environment filled with plants, animals, elements, and a complex array of spirits. With the advent of slavery, the physical bond with the motherland was broken, but like seeds lifted from a ripe plant by wind, we found fertile ground in distant lands elsewhere.

I expose slavery in this country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death.

Freedom is slavery some poets tell us. Enslave yourself to the right leader's truth, Christ's or Karl Marx', and it will set you free.

It's a collective truth that slavery is wrong, that child labor is wrong, that gross inequality is wrong. God didn't send it.

The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves besides.

Every emancipation has in it the seeds of a new slavery and every truth easily becomes a lie.

Those who tried to escape received the customary punishment, as Nicholson harrowingly described: After they had stripped the sufferer naked, they inserted the iron pointed stake into the lower termination of the vertebrae, and thence forced it up near his back bone, until it appeared between the shoulders, avoiding the vital parts. The stake was then raised in the air and the poor sufferer exposed to the view of the other slaves, writhing in…insupportable agony.

Kölelik d???nda hiçbir ÅŸey bilmeyen köleler uysal kölelerdir. Sadece tutuklu yaÅŸam?n? bilen tutuklular özgür olmamalar?n?n ac?s?n? çekmezler.

Page 37: Article 1, Section 2, of the Constitution counted each slave (usually treated in the law as chattel property) as three fifths of a person in determining Southern representation in the House of Representatives (this compromise, it should be noted, served Northern interests; had each slave been counted as a complete person for purposes of congressional representation, the South would have had even more representatives in Congress).

Abolitionists believe that, as all men are born free, so all who are now held as slaves in this country were born free, and that they are slaves now is the sin, not of those who introduced the race into this country, but of those, and those alone, who now hold them and have held them in slavery from their birth.

Racism is not first and foremost a skin problem. It is a sin problem. See, when you believe that racism is a skin problem, you can take three hundred years of slavery, court decisions, marches, and the federal government involvement and still not get it fixed right.

The sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission.