“We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand.”

— Frederick Douglass

Appendix
1840s, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845)

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Frederick Douglass 274

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

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“The Abolitionists were right in their attitude to the Church. Slavery and the Church were side by side: the Church was at peace with slavery: men were sold to build churches, women sold to pay missionaries, and children sold to buy Bibles. We did right to oppose it.”

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

1890s, Speech at the Abolitionist Reunion in Boston (1890)

“Diogenes, on being sold as a slave at Corinth, was asked by the auctioneer what he could do. "Rule men," he replied. "Do you suppose," asked the other, "that people want to buy masters?””

Stobaeus Ancient Greek anthologist

iii. 3. 52
Quotes by and about Diogenes

“The virtue of female slaves is wholly at the mercy of irresponsible tyrants, and women are bought and sold in our slave markets, to gratify the brutal lust of those who bear the name of Christians.”

Sarah Grimké (1792–1873) American abolitionist

Letter 8.
Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman (1837)

“It certainly must be an immense pleasure to God to see a man work patiently for nothing. It must please the Most High to see a slave with his wife and child sold upon the auction block. If this slave escapes from slavery and is pursued, how musical the baying of the bloodhound must be to the ears of this most merciful God. All this is simply infamous. On the throne of this universe there sits no such monster.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)

“Before God, there is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor; and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)
Context: Before God, there is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor; and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free; they are citizens of that universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of God.

“97. One of the brethren owned only a book of the Gospels. He sold this and gave the money for the support of the poor. He made a statement that deserves remembrance: "I have sold the very word that speaks to me saying: 'Sell your possessions and give to the poor.'"”

Evagrius Ponticus (345–399) Christian monk

The Praktikos

“Forced from home and all its pleasures
Afric's coast I left forlorn,
To increase a stranger's treasures
O'er the raging billows borne.
Men from England bought and sold me,
Paid my price in paltry gold;
But, though slave they have enrolled me,
Minds are never to be sold.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

Source: The Negro's Complaint (1788), Lines 1-8

“The testimony of all religious societies in the slave states is that the slaves are heathen and it is an utter impossibility to Christianize them and civilize them by this process.”

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=PA193&lpg=PA198 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 198
1860s, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (April 1860)

“Ala’u ‘d-Din Khalji had 50.000 slaves. Flrozshah Tughluq came to have 1,80,000 slaves. Muhammad Tughluq sold thousands of slaves everyday at throw-away price. And so forth. Indeed, there was unprecedentedly brisk business in the slave markets in India and abroad, thanks to slave hunt under Muslim rule in India. And the slaves had perforce to embrace the religion of their masters. For instance, on the capture of Kalinjar in 1202, ‘fifty thousand kaniz- o ghulam, having suffered slavery, were rewarded with the honour of Islam.’ Muhammad Ghori is reported to have converted three to four hundred thousand Khokhars and Tirahias to Islam.”

Harsh Narain (1921–1995) Indian writer

Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (1990)

“As soon as slavery fired upon the flag it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

To Otto von Bismarck in June 1878, as quoted in Around the World with General Grant http://www.granthomepage.com/grantslavery.htm (1879), by John Russell Young, The American News Company, New York, vol. 7, p. 416.
1870s, Around the World with General Grant (1879)

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Frederick Douglass 274

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