Slavery in the United States

Also known as Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball

Notable quotes

“Every measure of prudence... ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States.”
— John Adams, Letter to Robert J. Evans (June 8, 1819); The Works of John Adams, vol. 10 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1825)
“Slavery in this country, I have seen hanging over it like a black cloud for half a century.”
— John Adams (1821), as quoted in Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage (New York: Norton, 1993), p. 138
“Many in the south once believed that slavery was a moral and political evil. That folly and delusion are gone. We see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world.”
— John C. Calhoun, speech in the U.S. Senate (1838), as quoted in Time-Life Books: The Civil War, vol. 1 (New York: Time Inc., 1983)
“This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free.”
— George Carlin, What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (August 15, 1988), HBO special
“They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.”
— James Russell Lowell, "Stanzas on Freedom", Miscellaneous Poems (1843)
“Where slavery exists the republican Theory becomes still more fallacious.”
— James Madison, "Vices of the Political System of the United States" (April 1787); Robert A. Rutland, William M. E. Rachal (eds.) The Papers of James Madison, vol. 9 (University of Chicago Press, 1975), pp. 350–51

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.