“The justification of slavery is placed, so far as I know, mainly upon these grounds. The inferiority of the enslaved race, the fact that enslaving men imparts Christianity and civilization to them, and thirdly, the guarantees of the Constitution. These are the three main arguments presented to justify slavery, and consequently to justify its expansion, and by the way, I hold that the extreme men, as they are called, on this question, are the only men who have the logic of it. I am right or the fire-eaters or right. If slavery is right in Virginia, it is right in Kansas. If it is wrong in Kansas, it is wrong everywhere.”

— Owen Lovejoy

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA193&lpg=PA193 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 193
1860s, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (April 1860)

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Owen Lovejoy 37

American politician 1811–1864

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“I, on the other hand, deny that the Constitution guarantees the right to hold property in man, and believe that the way to abolish slavery in America is to vote such men into power as well use their powers for the abolition”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery? (1860)
Context: I, on the other hand, deny that the Constitution guarantees the right to hold property in man, and believe that the way to abolish slavery in America is to vote such men into power as well use their powers for the abolition of slavery. This is the issue plainly stated, and you shall judge between us.

“With what consistency, or decency they complain so loudly of attempts to enslave them, while they hold so many hundred thousands in slavery; and annually enslave many thousands more, without any pretence of authority, or claim upon them?”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)

“I know that this is a pro-slavery rebellion, for it is nothing else. Slavery and rebellion are identical and freedom and loyalty are identical, and those slave-holders who are truly loyal will soon become abolitionists, for that is the logic of their position and they will see as I see, that slavery must perish and pro-slavery men will be secessionists.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

Speech https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA293&dq=%22Pro-Slavery+Rebellion%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjtq-fys9zSAhWM4yYKHUaWBNIQ6AEIMjAE#v=onepage&q=%22Pro-Slavery%20Rebellion%22&f=false (January 1862)
1860s

“If the Bible sanctions slavery at all, it is the enslavement of white men. No one pretends that the servants spoken of in the Bible were blacks. The Roman slave was not a black man, the Hebrew slave was not a black man. The question is, whether the laboring man, white or black, may rightfully be enslaved.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA170 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 170
1850s, The Fanaticism of the Democratic Party (February 1859)

“A nation of well-informed men, who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them, cannot be enslaved.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Written by Henry Stuber as part of a biographical sketch of Franklin appended to a 1793 edition of Franklin's autobiography and sometimes reprinted with it in the 19th century. It is frequently misattributed to Franklin himself.
Misattributed
Context: Libraries … will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men, who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them, cannot be enslaved. It is in the regions of ignorance that tyranny reigns.

“For there is no constitutional right for any race to be preferred… If discrimination based on race is constitutionally permissible when those who hold the reins can come up with "compelling" reasons to justify it, then constitutional guarantees acquire an accordion-like quality.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Dissenting, DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312 (1974)
Judicial opinions

“We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race of men by the Creator, and from the cradle to the grave, our Government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

Reply in the Senate to William H. Seward (29 February 1860), Senate Chamber, U.S. Capitol. As quoted in The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 6, pp. 277–84. Transcribed from the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 916–18.
1860s

“If two men are adrift at sea on a plank which will bear up but one, the law justifies either in pushing the other off. I never had to struggle to keep a negro from enslaving me, nor did a negro ever have to fight to keep me from enslaving him.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)
Context: The proposition that there is a struggle between the white man and the negro contains a falsehood. There is no struggle. If there was, I should be for the white man. If two men are adrift at sea on a plank which will bear up but one, the law justifies either in pushing the other off. I never had to struggle to keep a negro from enslaving me, nor did a negro ever have to fight to keep me from enslaving him. They say, between the crocodile and the negro they go for the negro. The logical proportion is therefore; as a white man is to a negro, so is a negro to a crocodile; or, as the negro may treat the crocodile, so the white man may treat the negro. The 'don't care' policy leads just as surely to nationalizing slavery as Jeff Davis himself, but the doctrine is more dangerous because more insidious.

“The third point that is relied on to justify slaveholding is, that it is Constitutional. That is guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. I have heard it declared over and over again that the Constitution guarantees slavery. I deny it. In no article, in no section, in no line, in no word, in no syllable, can there be any recognition of the word 'slave' or 'slavery'. Why, sir. When I came up to take the oath to support the Constitution, a whispered buzz, half in earnest and half jocular, passed around. How can Lovejoy swear to support the Constitution? How can he take the oath? I could take the oath to support the Constitution, because I believe in the Constitution, because I hold to it, because my heart is loyal to it. Every part and parcel and portion of it, I believe in. But, I do not believe in the construction put upon it by those who claim its recognition and sanction of the practice of slaveholding.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA198 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, pp. 198–199
1860s, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (April 1860)

“In regard to the first point, the inferiority of the enslaved race. We may concede it is a matter of fact that it is inferior, but does it follow, therefore, that it is right to enslave a man simply because he is inferior? This, to me, is a most abhorrent doctrine. It would place the weak everywhere at the mercy of the strong. It would place the poor at the mercy of the rich. It would place those who are deficient in intellect at the mercy of those that are gifted in mental endowment.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

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