39 Best Anti Slavery Quotes That Everyone Should Know

Last Updated on November 4, 2020 by Scott M. Thomas

This is an excellent writing about anti slavery quotes and sayings by famous peoples. 

You may wonder: What is anti slavery? Anti slavery is the opposite of slavery. Slavery is a practice where human beings are treated by others as a legal property. Slavery still exists in third world country. There are many famous people who always speaks against slavery. Fredrick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln are two of them. In this writing we gathered the best sayings about anti slavery. Hope you’ll love it. 

“Slavery can only be abolished by raising the character of the people who compose the nation; and that can be done only by showing them a higher one.” – Maria Weston Chapman

“Every man knows that slavery is a curse. Whoever denies this, his lips libel his heart.” – Theodore Dwight Weld

anti slavery quotes images

“You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.” – William Wilberforce

“Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Slavery is theft — theft of a life, theft of work, theft of any property or produce, theft even of the children a slave might have borne.” – Kevin Bales

Not only does the Christian religion, but nature herself, cry out against the state of slavery.” – Pope Leo X

“Anytime anyone is enslaved, or in any way deprived of his liberty, if that person is a human being, as far as I am concerned he is justified to resort to whatever methods necessary to bring about his liberty again.” – Malcom X

“As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery.” – Gerry L. Spence

“When we acknowledge the kingdom of the self, we will no longer accept slavery either for ourselves or for others, no matter how it is disguised.” – Fredrick Douglass

frederick douglass quotes

“In nothing was slavery so savage and relentless as in its attempted destruction of the family instincts of the Negro race in America. Individuals, not families; shelters, not homes; herding, not marriages, were the cardinal sins in that system of horrors.” – Fannie Barrier Williams

“Neither my tongue, nor my pen, nor purse shall be wanting to promote the abolition of what to me appears so inconsistent with humanity and Christianity.” – Benjamin Franklin

“It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honor of the States as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people.  To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.” – John Jay

“[Slavery] is the root of almost all the troubles of the present and the fears for the future.” – John Quincy Adams

“Slavery is no scholar, no improver; it does not love the whistle of the railroad; it does not love the newspaper, the mail-bag, a college, a book or a preacher who has the absurd whim of saying what he thinks; it does not increase the white population; it does not improve the soil; everything goes to decay.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.” – George Gordon Byron

quotes about the harshness of slavery

“If you love your children, if you love your country, if you love the God of love, clear your hands from slaves. Burden not your children or country with them.” – Richard Allen

Recommended for you – 55 Best Materialistic Quotes And Sayings

Anti Slavery Quotes By Abraham Lincoln

“Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature – opposition to it, is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle – the sheet anchor of American republicanism.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“We think slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the territories, where our votes will reach it.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not think, and feel.” – Abraham Lincoln 

famous anti slavery quotes

“I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that ‘I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“I think slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just – a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“I do not wish to be misunderstood upon this subject of slavery in this country. I suppose it may long exist, and perhaps the best way for it to come to an end peaceably is for it to exist for a length of time. But I say that the spread and strengthening and perpetuation of it is an entirely different proposition. There we should in every way resist it as a wrong, treating it as a wrong, with the fixed idea that it must and will come to an end.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil, having due regard for its actual existence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“I think that one of the causes of these repeated failures is that our best and greatest men have greatly underestimated the size of this question (slavery). They have constantly brought forward small cures for great sores—plasters too small to cover the wound. That is one reason that all settlements have proved so temporary—so evanescent.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.” – Abraham Lincoln 

arguments against slavery

“You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. For this, neither has any just occasion to be angry with the other.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.” – Abraham Lincoln 

“I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any abolitionist.” – Abraham Lincoln 

Another one – 66 Best Stay In Your Lane Quotes

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top
Verified by MonsterInsights