Slavery in the United States

In America, the Democratic Party thinks slavery is 'indispensable to good government', and is 'the normal condition of one seventh part of the people'. ~ Theodore Parker

The Democratic Party then, as now, was in open alliance with slavery, in a conspiracy against the Constitution and the peace of the country. ~ George William Curtis

We love freedom more, vastly more, than slavery. Consequently, we hope to keep clear of the Democrats! ~ Joseph Hayne Rainey

Slavery in the United States was the legal institution of human chattel slavery that existed in the United States of America in the 18th and 19th centuries after it gained independence and before the end of the American Civil War. Slavery had been practiced in British North America from early colonial days, and was recognized in all the Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Slavery was a major political issue in the United States throughout its existence. In 1860, an anti-slavery president was elected, and several slave-holding states declared that they were longer a part of the U.S. as a result. The U.S. refused to recognize their claim and civil war erupted, after four years of which, the rebelling slave states were defeated and the institution was outlawed.

Quotes

• Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States.
  • John Adams, as quoted in letter to Robert J. Evans (8 June 1819).

• I shudder when I think of the calamities which slavery is likely to produce in this country. You would think me mad if I were to describe my anticipations.
  • John Adams (1820), as quoted in John Adams (1962), by Page Smith, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, p. 138.

• Slavery in this country, I have seen hanging over it like a black cloud for half a century.
  • John Adams (1821), as quoted in Passionate Sage (1993), Joseph J. Ellis, New York: Norton, p. 138.

• Slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United States, is none other than the most barbarous, unprovoked and unjustifiable war of one portion of its citizens against another portion, the only conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment and hopeless servitude, or absolute extermination, in utter disregard and violation of those eternal and self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence.
  • John Brown, as quoted in "Provisional Constitution and Ordinances" (1858).

• I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood. I had as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed, it might be done.
  • John Brown, as quoted in a note that he had at his execution (2 December 1859), most sources say it was handed to the guard, but some dispute that and claim it was handed to a reporter accompaning him; as quoted in John Brown and his Men (1894) by Richard Josiah Hinton.

• This is a beautiful country.
  • John Brown, last words (2 December 1859), as quoted in John Brown and his Men (1894) by Richard Josiah Hinton, p. 397.

• This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free.
  • George Carlin, as quoted in What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988).

• There was not in all the colonial legislation of America one single law which recognized the rightfulness of slavery in the abstract; that in 1774 Virginia stigmatized the slave-trade as 'wicked, cruel, and unnatural'; that in the same year Congress protested against it 'under the sacred ties of virtue, honor, and love of country'; that in 1775 the same Congress denied that God intended one man to own another as a slave; that the new Discipline of the Methodist Church, in 1784, and the Pastoral Letter of the Presbyterian Church, in 1788, denounced slavery; that abolition societies existed in slave States, and that it was hardly the interest even of the cotton-growing States, where it took a slave a day to clean a pound of cotton, to uphold the system... Jefferson, in his address to the Virginia Legislature of 1774, says that 'the abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of desire in these colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state'; and while he constantly remembers to remind us that the Jeffersonian prohibition of slavery in the territories was lost in 1784, he forgets to add that it was lost, not by a majority of votes — for there were sixteen in its favor to seven against it — but because the sixteen votes did not represent two thirds of the States; and he also incessantly forgets to tell us that this Jeffersonian prohibition was restored by the Congress of 1785, and erected into the famous Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which was re-enacted by the first Congress of the United States and approved by the first President.
  • George William Curtis, "The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question" (18 October 1859), New York City.

• The Democratic Party then, as now, was in open alliance with slavery, in a conspiracy against the Constitution and the peace of the country.
  • George William Curtis, as quoted in "The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question" (18 October 1859), New York City.

• If Washington or Jefferson or Madison should utter upon his native soil today the opinions he entertained and expressed upon this question, he would be denounced as a fanatical abolitionist. To declare the right of all men to liberty is sectional, because slavery is afraid of liberty and strikes the mouth that speaks the word. To preach slavery is not sectional — no: because freedom respects itself and believes in itself enough to give an enemy fair play. Thus Boston asked Senator Toombs to come and say what he could for slavery. I think Boston did a good thing, but I think Senator Toombs is not a wise man, for he went. He went all the way from Georgia to show Massachusetts how slavery looks, and to let it learn what it has to say. When will Georgia ask Wendell Phillips or Charles Sumner to come down and show her how liberty looks and speaks?
  • George William Curtis, as quoted in "The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question" (18 October 1859), New York City.

• I confess I secretly suspect the Republicanism of an orator who is more anxious to show his hearers that he respects what he calls the rights of slavery than that he loves the rights of man. If God be just and the human instinct true, slavery has no rights at all. It has only a legalized toleration. Have I a right to catch a weaker man than I, and appropriate him, his industry, and his family, forever, against his will, to my service? Because if I have, any man stronger than I has the same right over me. But if I have not, what possible right is represented by the two thousand million dollars of property in human beings in this country? It is the right of Captain Kidd on the sea, of Dick Turpin on the land. I certainly do not say that every slave-holder is a bad man, because I know the contrary. The complicity of many with the system is inherited, and often unwilling. But to rob a man of his liberty, to make him so far as possible a brute and a thing, is not less a crime against human nature because it is organized into a hereditary system of frightful proportions. A wrong does not become a right by being vested.
  • George William Curtis, as quoted in "The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question" (18 October 1859), New York City.

• As to the doctrine of slavery and the right of Christians to hold Africans in perpetual servitude, and sell and treat them as we do our horses and cattle, that, it is true, has been heretofore countenanced by the Province Laws formerly, but nowhere is it expressly enacted or established. It has been a usage, a usage which took its origin from the practice of some of the European nations, and the regulations of British government respecting the then-colonies, for the benefit of trade and wealth. But whatever sentiments have formerly prevailed in this particular or slid in upon us by the example of others, a different idea has taken place with the people of America, more favorable to the natural rights of mankind, and to that natural, innate desire of liberty, with which Heaven, without regard to color, complexion, or shape of noses-features, has inspired all the human race. And upon this ground our constitution of government, by which the people of this Commonwealth have solemnly bound themselves, sets out with declaring that all men are born free and equal, and that every subject is entitled to liberty, and to have it guarded by the laws, as well as life and property, and in short is totally repugnant to the idea of being born slaves. This being the case, I think the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our own conduct and constitution; and there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature, unless his liberty is forfeited by some criminal conduct or given up by personal consent or contract.
  • William Cushing, as quoted in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Jennison (1783).

• Slavery is, as you justly complain, a sad blot on our free country.
  • James Madison, letter to La Fayette (1821).

• In America, the Democratic Party thinks slavery is 'indispensable to good government', and is 'the normal condition of one seventh part of the people'.
  • Theodore Parker, "The relation of slavery to a Republican form of government" (26 May 1858), New England Anti-Slavery Convention.

• If Americans should now turn back, submit again to slavery, it would be a betrayal so base the human race might better perish.
  • Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine (1943), p. 292.

• Slavery isn't a uniquely American sin, but rather one of mankind throughout the course of history.
  • Catherine M. Pavlich, as quoted in "Katie Pavlich: America Is Not Racist" (29 June 2015), by C.M. Pavlich, The Hill, News Communications, Inc.

• If the Negroes, numbering one-eighth of the population of these United States, would only cast their votes in the interest of the Democratic Party, all open measures against them would be immediately suspended and their rights as American citizens recognized. But as to the real results of such a state of affairs, and speaking in behalf of those with whom I am conversant, I can only say that we love freedom more, vastly more, than slavery. Consequently, we hope to keep clear of the Democrats! I say to the entire membership of the Democratic Party, that upon your hands rests the blood of the loyal men of the south. Disclaim it as you will; the stain is there to prove your criminality before God and the world in the day of retribution.
  • Joseph Hayne Rainey, as quoted in speech (1871).