Though we waited long, we saw all this and more.
1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)
1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)
“The slave-holder claims the slave as his Property.”
A Human Being Cannot Be Justly Owned (1835)
Context: The slave-holder claims the slave as his Property. The very idea of a slave is, that he belongs to another, that he is bound to live and labor for another, to be another’s instrument, and to make another’s will his habitual law, however adverse to his own. Another owns him, and, of course, has a right to his time and strength, a right to the fruits of his labor, a right to task him without his consent, and to determine the kind and duration of his toil, a right to confine him to any bounds, a right to extort the required work by stripes, a right, in a word, to use him as a tool, without contract, against his will, and in denial of his right to dispose of himself, or to use his power for his own good. “A slave,” says the Louisiana code, “is in the power of the master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing, but which must belong to his master.” “Slaves shall be deemed, taken, reputed, and adjudged,” say the South-Carolina laws, “to be chattels personal in the hands of their masters, and possessions to all intents and purposes whatsoever.” Such is slavery, a claim to man as property. Now this claim of property in a human being is altogether false, groundless. No such right of man in man can exist. A human being cannot be justly owned. To hold and treat him as property is to inflict a great wrong, to incur the guilt of oppression.
Further Studies in a Dying Culture (1949), Chapter IV: Consciousness: A Study in Bourgeois Psychology
1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)
Source: Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859), Ch. I : Self-Help — National and Individual
“None can be free who is a slave to, and ruled by, his passions.”
As quoted in Florilegium, XVIII, 23, as translated in Dictionary of Quotations (1906) by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 368
No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself.
As translated by Nicholas Rowe(1732)
No man is free who cannot command himself.
As quoted in Moral Encyclopaedia, Or, Varlé's Self-instructor, No. 3 (1831) by by Charles Varle
No man is free who cannot control himself.
As quoted in 25 Days to Better Thinking and Better Living: A Guide for Improving Every Aspect of Your Life (2006) by Linda Elder and Richard Paul
Florilegium
2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Right of Secession Is Not the Right of Revolution
