
A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it, in the State of Virginia (1796)
1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)
Context: This negative doctrine of Mr. Douglas that there are no rights anterior to governments is the end of free society. If the majority of a political community have a right to establish slavery if they think it for their interest, they have the same right to declare who shall be enslaved. The doctrine simply substitutes the despotic, irresponsible tyranny of many for that of one. If the majority shall choose that the interest of the State requires the slaughter of all infants born lame, of all persons more than seventy years of age, they have the right to slaughter them, according to what is called the Democratic doctrine. Do you think this a ludicrous and extreme case? But if the majority have a right to deprive a man of his liberty at their pleasure, they have an equal right to take his life. For life is no more a natural right than liberty. The individual citizen, according to Mr. Douglas, is not secure in his person, in his property, in his family, for a single moment from the whim or the passion or the deliberate will of the majority, if expressed as law. Might is not right. I have the power to hold a child by the throat until he turns purple and dies. But I have not the right to do it. A State or a Territory has the power to steal a man's liberty or labor, and to hold him and his children's children forever in slavery. It has the power to do this to any man of any color, of any age, of any country, who is not strong enough to protect himself. But it has no more right to do it to an African than to an American or an Irishman, no more right to do it to the most ignorant and forsaken foreigner than to the prosperous and honored citizen of its own country. We are going to do what Patrick Henry did in Virginia, what James Otis and Samuel Adams did in Massachusetts, what the Sons of Liberty did in New York, ninety years ago. We are going to agitate, agitate, agitate. You say you want to rest. Very well, so do we — and don't blame us if you stuff your pillow with thorns. You say you are tired of the eternal Negro. Very well, stop trying to turn a man into a thing because he happens to be black, and you'll stop our mouths at the same time. But while you keep at your work, be perfectly sure that we shall keep at ours. If you are up at five o'clock, we shall be up at four. We shall agitate, agitate, agitate, until the Supreme Court, obeying the popular will, proclaims that all men have original equal rights which government did not give and cannot justly take away.
A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it, in the State of Virginia (1796)
“Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.”
Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), p. 341
The 5,000 Year Leap (1981)
1960s, The American Promise (1965)
Context: This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: "All men are created equal" — "government by consent of the governed" — "give me liberty or give me death." Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives. Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man's possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.
1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)
Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter II, The Elements of Liberalism, p. 16.
Draft of a preface in “Notebook 16”; Quoted in The Collected Works of J.M. Synge, vol. 1, Introduction (1962).
“Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Convention,” speech in Philadelphia, (Dec. 6 1833) http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeswlgct.html