logo

Quotes About Abolitionists

That a majority of the Abolitionists in this place would patronize a free labor store, in preference to others, I do not doubt; but we do not muster money in Cincinnati.
~ Gamaliel Bailey
There is a large body of abolitionists in Clinton and Clark Counties in this state, and in Wayne County Indiana, that would undoubtedly support such a store, but whether their support would be sufficient, I am unable to say.
~ Gamaliel Bailey
Taken at its face value, the Bible does not condemn slavery. When abolitionists argued that the deeper message of the Bible was clearly against slavery—as Mark Noll points out—they were viewed as suspiciously unfaithful to the Bible.
~ David P. Gushee
And where abolitionists preached slavery as a violation against the higher law, Southerners angrily countered with their own version of the deity, that it was sanctioned by the Constitution. In the vortex of this debate, once the battle lines were sharply drawn, moderate ground everywhere became hostage to the passions of the two sides. Reason itself had become suspect; mutual tolerance was seen as treachery. Vitriol overcame accommodation. And the slavery issue would not just fade away.
~ Jay Winik
Our government," Lincoln declared, "rests on public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion can change the government." The task of Republicans was to counteract Democrats' "gradual and steady debauching of public opinion" until it no longer valued the central ideal of equality.52 Like the abolitionists, Lincoln saw public sentiment as the terrain on which the crusade against slavery was to be waged.
~ Eric Foner
The abolitionists set it up, the defeat of the Confederacy made it imperative. It was freely admitted that it "confers on Congress the power to invade any state to enforce the freedom of the African in war or peace.
~ Robert Franklin Williams
Charleston's postmaster had asked New York City's postmaster, Samuel Gouveneur, to extract antislavery tracts from his southbound mail. Gouveneur agreed and informed the postmaster general that he planned to deny postal access to Tappan and his colleagues. The issue went up to Andrew Jackson, who informally authorized Gouveneur's embargo on "offensive papers" and explicitly denounced the AASS in his Annual Message. For the moment, the abolitionists were stymied.
~ Edwin G. Burrows
Child, along with the Grimke sisters, was unusual even among abolitionists in her belief in integration and the equality of the races. The Northern women who worked for abolition were generally not free of racial prejudice—many female abolition societies refused to allow black members.
~ Gail Collins
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men were created equal, he owned slaves. Women couldn't vote. But, throughout history, our abolitionists, suffragettes, and civil rights leaders called on our nation, in reality, to live up to the nation's professed ideals in that Declaration.
~ Marvin Ammori
There were thousands of abolitionists who were free traders.
~ Robert Toombs
Christian abolitionists gave their lives by the hundreds of thousands to end slavery.
~ Steve King
From abolitionists, suffragettes, and civil rights activists here in America, to the international effort of the Allied forces during World War II and the team that rescued the boys in Thailand, the world has seen what happens when collective efforts dedicated to justice, peace, democracy, and love overcome forces that mitigate against them. History has shown what fear can do, but it has also shown us what love can do.
~ Marianne Williamson
How are people so irrational?" he asked, but he knew. Even the abolitionists had no wish to be placed inside creation, subject to its laws. They wished to rule over it from the head of God's table.
~ Barbara Kingsolver
the dread of Darwin is rising to hysteria, even among his learned colleagues. It was not long ago people blamed Darwin's Origin for encouraging the abolitionists and the war. But now even abolitionists and transcendentalists have turned against him." "How are people so irrational?" he asked, but he knew. Even the abolitionists had no wish to be placed inside creation, subject to its laws. They wished to rule over it from the head of God's table.
~ Barbara Kingsolver
'Free State of Jones' went beyond that. It got into how the South wasn't as homogenous as we thought it was - or even the North for that matter, where we like to assume everyone wanted to free the slaves and they were all abolitionists. It actually shows how complex these ideologies were on both sides.
~ Mahershala Ali
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.
~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy
As the Bible inculcates upon man but one duty in respect to sin, and that is immediate repentance, abolitionists believe that all who hold slaves, or who approve the practice in others, should immediately cease to do so.
~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy
Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties.
~ Pete Seeger
Phil's a slow-thinking sort, so I usually tied him up. He's one of the few communists I've ever been able to stand. They're like the abolitionists. Their cause may be just, but their personalities are repulsive. I don't really know whether they're right or not, and I don't care.
~ Herman Wouk
Many Abolitionists have yet to learn the ABC of woman's rights.
~ Susan B. Anthony
All of the movements that opened up the democratic space in America—the abolitionists, the suffragists, the labor movement, the communists, the socialists, the anarchists, and the civil rights movement—developed a critical mass and militancy that forced the centers of power to respond. The platitudes about justice, equality, and democracy are just that. Only when ruling elites become worried about survival do they react. Appealing to the better nature of the powerful is useless.
~ Chris Hedges
The abolitionists were not like the rugged people out West, and they were not like John Brown, either. They were people who made speeches and did politics.
~ James McBride
Oftentimes, a history book in school will talk about the Underground Railroad as if it's one sentence. But thousands of people decided to run, and they single-handedly changed the trajectory of our nation. By running to the North, they put a face to slavery, which recruited a lot of abolitionists.
~ Jurnee Smollett-Bell
Antislavery literature was illegal in this part of the nation. Abolitionists and sympathizers who came down to Georgia and Florida were run off, flogged and abused by mobs, tarred and feathered. Methodists and their inanities had no place in the bosom of King Cotton. The planters did not abide contagion.
~ Colson Whitehead