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, Provisional Constitution and Ordinances, 1858
Here before God in the presence of these witnesses I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery. John Brown
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise – with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We – even we here – hold the power, and bear the responsibility. 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. Abraham Lincoln, message to Congress December 1862
Without slavery the rebellion would never have existed; without slavery it could not continue. Abraham Lincoln, second annual message 1st December 1862
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. Abraham Lincoln, letter to H L Pierce April 1859
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. Abraham Lincoln, cited The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, editor Roy Basler
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Abraham Lincoln, August 1858
I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. Abraham Lincoln, letter to Hodges 1864
You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own. But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you. Abraham Lincoln, cited Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
... The spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world – enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites – causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty – criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest. Abraham Lincoln, speech Illinois October 1854
When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government – that is despotism. If the Negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal’ and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another. Abraham Lincoln, cited The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
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 ... Now the relation of master and slave is pro tanto a total violation of this principle. The master not only governs the slave without his consent, but he governs him by a set of rules altogether different from those which he prescribes for himself. Allow ALL the governed an equal voice in the government, and that, and that only, is self-government. ibid.
Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature – opposition to it, in 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. Repeal the Missouri Compromise – repeal all compromises – repeal the Declaration of Independence – repeal all past history, you still can not repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of man’s heart, that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak. ibid.
Little by little, but steadily as man’s march to the grave, we have been giving up the old for the new faith. Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a ‘sacred right of self-government’. These principles can not stand together. They are as opposite as God and Mammon; and whoever holds to the one, must despise the other. ibid.
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. Abraham Lincoln, House Divided speech 1858
On 1st day of January in the year of our Lord 1863 all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of the state the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, henceforth and forever free. Abraham Lincoln, The Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln is the most celebrated figure in American history ... An historic battle is being waged for the reputation of America’s sixteenth president ... Lincoln’s critics claim he plunged the nation into an unnecessary war. And that generations of historians have conspired to hide the fact that the great emancipator was in reality a racist who planned to deport the slaves out of America. Abraham Lincoln: Saint or Sinner? BBC 2011
From the moment of his death the real Abraham Lincoln has been obscured by the almost religious cult that surrounds him. ibid.
His image is everywhere ... Hundreds of statues peppered across the nation. ibid.
From 1854 onward Abraham Lincoln campaigned against the expansion of slavery into the western territories. But the man ... did not call for the abolition of slavery ... The Great Emancipator appeared to stand on the sidelines. ibid.
The accusation that has been raged against Abraham Lincoln is that on coming to office he pushed the American people into a disastrous and avoidable conflict. ibid.
Abraham Lincoln prosecuted the Civil War ferociously. ibid.
There is another America: among some in the former states of the Confederacy the Civil War is remembered as a war of aggression, and Abraham Lincoln a war criminal. ibid.
The ferocity with which the Lincoln administration conducted war was not restricted to the south. Lincoln had gone to war to prevent slavery expanding into the west, and to defend the free soil ideology of his Republican Party. But the soil and the land of the west could only be made free for white settlers if first cleared of its original owners: the Native Americans. ibid.
Does Lincoln deserve his reputation as the Great Emancipator, or was the Emancipation Proclamation as much an act of war as it was an act of mercy? ibid.
The Civil War had consumed 630,000 lives. ibid.
Three of his four children failed to make it to adulthood, he suffered from intense bouts of depression, he was unhappily married, in 1833 he went bankrupt. Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln: A Culture Show Special, BBC 2013
He was the definitive war president. ibid.
His assassination five days after the end of the war created a kind of modern day saint. ibid.
Lincoln was a conservative; he was not an abolitionist. ibid.
In 1858 he says: ‘I am not nor ever have been in favour of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.’ ibid.
You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar-cane for miles but you can still be working on a plantation. Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues, 1956
After he failed to contact the emperor of China, the traders of India, or the merchants of Japan, Columbus decided to pay for his voyage in the one important commodity he had found in ample supply – human lives. He seized 1,200 Taino Indians from the island of Hispaniola, crammed as many onto his ships as would fit, and sent them to Spain, where they were paraded naked through the streets of Seville and sold as slaves in 1495. Columbus tore children from their parents, husbands from wives. On board Columbus’ slave ships, hundreds died; the sailors tossed the Indian bodies into the Atlantic.
Because Columbus captured more Indian slaves than he could transport to Spain in his small ships, he put them to work in mines and plantations which he, his family, and followers created throughout the Caribbean. His marauding band hunted Indians for sport and profit – beating, raping, torturing, killing, and then using the Indian bodies as food for their hunting dogs. Within four years of Columbus’ arrival on Hispaniola, his men had killed or exported one-third of the original Indian population of 300,000.