19th-century Abolitionist Quotes

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Tubman

John Brown (abolitionist)

Sojourner Truth

Elizabeth Blackwell

Julia Ward Howe

Charles Sumner

But now, instead of discussion and argument, brute force rises up to the rescue of discomfited error, and crushes truth and right into the dust. "Might makes right," and hoary folly totters on in her mad career escorted by armies and navies.

I will answer anything I can with honor, but not about others.

John Brown (abolitionist)

Make people happy and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there now is.

Lydia Maria Child

The ultimate aim of the human mind, in all its efforts, is to become acquainted with Truth.

One of the duties which devolve upon women in the present interesting crisis, is to prepare themselves for more extensive usefulness, by making use of those religious and literary privileges and advantages that are within their reach, if they will only stretch out their hands and possess them.

In Virgil's account of the good housewife, who rises early in order to measure out the work of the household, and in Solomon's description of the thrifty woman of his time, one sees the value set upon feminine industry and economy in times far removed from our own.

Julia Ward Howe

Justice is the idea of God, the ideal of man, the rule of conduct writ in the nature of mankind.

Theodore Parker

No class is safe unless government is so arranged that each class has in its hands the means of protecting itself. That is the idea of republics.

Wendell Phillips

I think God rarely gives to one man, or one set of men, more than one great moral victory to win.

There is a great life-giving, warming power called Love, which exists in human hearts dumb and unseen, but which has no real life, no warming power, till set free by expression.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

The slave power dares anything, and it can be conquered only by the united masses of the people. From Congress to the people, I appeal.

Our nerves and sinews, our tears and blood have been sacrificed on the altar of this nation's avarice. Our unpaid labor has been a stepping-stone to its financial success. Some of its dividends must surely be ours.

Sojourner Truth

I grew up like a neglected weed—ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it.

Irony is jesting hidden behind gravity. Humor is gravity concealed behind the jest.

I declare, it does appear to me, as though some nations think God is asleep, or that he made the Africans for nothing else but to dig their mines and work their farms, or they cannot believe history, sacred or profane.

David Walker (abolitionist)

I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation.

If a law commands me to sin I will break it; if it calls me to suffer, I will let it take its course unresistingly.

Angelina Grimké

I felt more than ever the necessity of my mission. But I went home out of spirits, I hardly know why. I must work by myself all life long.

Elizabeth Blackwell

A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years. Neither are a people any the less slaves because permitted periodically to choose new masters.

Lysander Spooner

The most stupendous system of organized robbery known has been that of the church towards woman, a robbery that has not only taken her self-respect but all rights of person; the fruits of her own industry; her opportunities of education; the exercise of her judgment, her own conscience, her own will.

Matilda Joslyn Gage

The only ground on which a neutral State can claim respect at the hands of belligerents is, that, so far as she is concerned, their rights are protected.

It has been suggested that an account of my life and fortunes would not be uninteresting to the public,

Solomon Northup

When this boy was brought to Dr. Young, his name being William, the same as mine, my mother was ordered to change mine to something else. This, at the time, I thought to be one of the most cruel acts that could be committed upon my rights.

William Wells Brown

Every man knows that slavery is a curse. Whoever denies this, his lips libel his heart.

Theodore Dwight Weld

But gentlemen, as long as I am an American Citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, and to publish whatever I please on any subject.

Elijah Parish Lovejoy