“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

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.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I, on the other hand, deny that the Constitution guarantees the right to hold property in man, and believe that the way…" by Frederick Douglass?

Frederick Douglass274

American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman 1818–1895

Related quotes

“I cannot believe that in the twentieth century the British people are by their deliberate vote going to constitute this assembly – a fraction of whom no doubt are men of real eminence and dignity, but the great majority of whom are quite ordinary people of the well-to-do class with all the narrowest prejudices and special interests of that class – I cannot believe that you by your votes are going to constitute them the main foundation on which the governing power in our land is reposed. I cannot believe the middle classes and the working classes, who after all have only to use their voting strength to get their own way, are going to degrade and cast away their own voting powers which their fathers won for them in the past…I cannot believe that the electors are going obsequiously to hand over their most vital constitutional right, namely, to choose the Chamber that governs the Government, to an antiquated body of titled persons utterly beyond their control.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The People's Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), pp. 65-66
Early career years (1898–1929)

“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 (1811–1864) American politician

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

“Southern states had embraced the Union only insofar as it served to protect their rights to hold property in slaves, and to spread slavery as the nation expanded and the institution itself became intertwined as a defining element in the struggle for national power itself. In slavery could not spread as new states were formed, then the existing slave states would be doomed to perpetual minority in representation in Congress, guaranteeing that if the day came when Northern antipathy to slavery itself became hot enough, the majority could use the government to subvert the Constitution and abolish the institution where it already existed. In short, the South could not affort to lose any battle over slavery, nor even over issues on its periphery.”

William C. Davis (1946) American historian

Source: Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America (2002), p. 3

“It is one of our Theosophical duties to show men the way to wisdom, to peace, to happiness, to strength, and to spiritual power - the real powers, the powers which are safe and clean and sweet, which make a man lovable, which make him compassionate, which guarantee that power put into his hands will be wielded never for self but always in order to benefit others.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

“I hold that the Federal Government was never, in its essence, anything but an anti-slavery government. Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered. It was purposely so framed as to give no claim, no sanction to the claim, of property in a man. If in its origin slavery had any relation to the government, it was only as the scaffolding to the magnificent structure, to be removed as soon as the building was completed.”

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

As quoted in Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July https://books.google.com/books?id=-m2WBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT106&lpg=PT106&dq=%22scaffolding+to+the+magnificent+structure%22+douglass&source=bl&ots=KT4-pHUo5-&sig=ACfU3U21MIZj_niQo7pIGSxeO5vhEkXq4w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwim6fvM3I3iAhVqiOAKHWIqDK8Q6AEwB3oECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22scaffolding%20to%20the%20magnificent%20structure%22%20douglass&f=false <br class="br">1860s, Should the Negro Enlist in the Union Army? (1863)

“In the decade from the Declaration to the Constitution every state north of the Mason Dixon line, and north of the Ohio River, either abolished slavery or adopted measures leading to abolition.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

But in 1793 the cotton gin was invented, shortly after the power loom in England. This was the onset of the industrial revolution. Almost overnight, a new industry or rather a series of new industries, proliferating worldwide, was born. It began with the growing of cotton but was followed by its manufacture into a wide variety of products, especially cotton cloth and cotton clothing. Suddenly, slave labor became vastly more profitable. In the decade before the Civil War, the value of slaves doubled. Once again, greed overwhelmed all other motives. From being regarded as a temporary evil, as it was at the founding, slavery came to be regarded as a positive—and permanent—good.
2000s, God Bless America (2008), Slavery and the American Cause

“A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit…. A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Living in Truth (1986), An Anatomy of Reticence

“Now there's a little story to that. Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott decision—which said that the Missouri Compromise restriction of slavery in 1820 and any other one, was unconstitutional—said that there was no power in the Congress to forbid slavery in the territories. And he added as a kind of obiter dictum that the only power of Congress over slavery in the territories was the power coupled with the duty of protecting the owner and his rights. Now the seven states of the Deep South interpreted that to mean that the police power of the federal government had to guarantee the integrity of the property of any slave owner going into any United States territory.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Right of Secession Is Not the Right of Revolution

“Iran should not be denied the human right to knowledge…the fear of America is Iran's attitude to Israel, and the cornerstone of America's foreign policy is the protection of Israel… If Iran believes in Allah, and if Iran believes in the power of Allah, Iran can't be frightened by America.”

Louis Farrakhan (1933) leader of the Nation of Islam

Louis Farrakhan, Leader of the "Nation of Islam", Declares His Support of Iran's Nuclear Program and Claims that Since the U.S. Administration Ignored His Warnings, "the Time for the Chastisement of Allah Is Here" http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1407 (March 2007)

“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&ndash;64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA198 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, pp. 198&ndash;199 <br class="br">1860s, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (April 1860)

“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”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Frederick Douglass274

Related quotes

Related topics