“An act against the Constitution is void; an act against natural equity is void.”
James Otis Jr. (1725–1783) Lawyer in colonial Massachusetts
Argument Against the Writs of Assistance (1761)
Woman's Rights to the Suffrage Speech (1873)
“An act against the Constitution is void; an act against natural equity is void.”
James Otis Jr. (1725–1783) Lawyer in colonial Massachusetts
Argument Against the Writs of Assistance (1761)
Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian
Source: Writings, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), p. 93
Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
Interview (January 1965?)
By any means necessary: speeches, interviews, and a letter (1970)
Context: I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.
Benjamin Tillman (1847–1918) American politician
Speech to the U.S. Senate https://web.archive.org/web/20160228073733/http://emancipation.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/emancipation/publication/attachments/A_Republican_Text-Book_for_Colored_Voters.pdf (23 March 1900) <br class="br">1900s, 1900
“Black women control the world. We are through being discriminated against.”
Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist
Communion: The Female Search for Love (2002) ISBN 0-06-093829-3
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor
1990s, The Party of Lincoln vs. The Party of Bureaucrats (1996)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
Remarks by President Obama and President Kenyatta of Kenya in a Press Conference at Kenyan State House in Nairobi, Kenya https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/25/remarks-president-obama-and-president-kenyatta-kenya-press-conference (July 25, 2015) <br class="br">2015 <br class="br">Context: I believe in the principle of treating people equally under the law, and that they are deserving of equal protection under the law and that the state should not discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation. And I say that, recognizing that there may be people who have different religious or cultural beliefs. But the issue is how does the state operate relative to people. If you look at the history of countries around the world, when you start treating people differently -- not because of any harm they’re doing anybody, but because they’re different -- that’s the path whereby freedoms begin to erode and bad things happen. And when a government gets in the habit of treating people differently, those habits can spread. And as an African-American in the United States, I am painfully aware of the history of what happens when people are treated differently, under the law, and there were all sorts of rationalizations that were provided by the power structure for decades in the United States for segregation and Jim Crow and slavery, and they were wrong.
James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)
Resolutions proposed to the Legislature of Virginia (21 December 1798), passed on 24 December; as published in the "Report of the Committee to whom were referred the Communications of various States, relative to the Resolutions of the last General Assembly of this State, concerning the Alien and Sedition Laws" (20 January 1800)
1790s
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1850s, The House Divided speech (1858)