“The 14th Amendment was intended to drive a stake through the heart of Dred Scott. The heart of that opinion consisted in the assertion that Negroes were so far inferior that they had no rights which white men were bound to respect. This meant that as far as the Constitution was concerned, the distance between whites and blacks was no less than the distance between whites and any other inferior species. A white man had the same right to rule a Negro as he had to rule dog or a horse. Hence according to Taney blacks were not and could not have been included in the proposition "that all men are created equal." Whether or not they were intended to be so included was among the questions most fiercely debated by Lincoln and Douglas.”

2000s, The Logic of the Colorblind Constitution (2004)

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Harry V. Jaffa 171
American historian and collegiate professor 1918–2015

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Harry V. Jaffa photo

“The 14th Amendment was intended to drive a stake through the heart of Dred Scott.”

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

The heart of that opinion consisted in the assertion that Negroes were so far inferior that they had no rights which white men were bound to respect. This meant that as far as the Constitution was concerned, the distance between whites and blacks was no less than the distance between whites and any other inferior species. A white man had the same right to rule a Negro as he had to rule dog or a horse. Hence according to Taney blacks were not and could not have been included in the proposition "that all men are created equal." Whether or not they were intended to be so included was among the questions most fiercely debated by Lincoln and Douglas.
2000s, The Logic of the Colorblind Constitution (2004)

Stephen A. Douglas photo

“Lincoln maintains there that the Declaration of Independence asserts that the negro is equal to the white man, and that under Divine law, and if he believes so it was rational for him to advocate negro citizenship, which, when allowed, puts the negro on an equality under the law. I say to you in all frankness, gentlemen, that in my opinion a negro is not a citizen, cannot be, and ought not to be, under the Constitution of the United States. I will not even qualify my opinion to meet the declaration of one of the Judges of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, “that a negro descended from African parents, who was imported into this country as a slave is not a citizen, and cannot be.” I say that this Government was established on the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and never should be administered by any except white men. I declare that a negro ought not to be a citizen, whether his parents were imported into this country as slaves or not, or whether or not he was born here. It does not depend upon the place a negro’s parents were born, or whether they were slaves or not, but upon the fact that he is a negro, belonging to a race incapable of self-government, and for that reason ought not to be on an equality with white men.”

Stephen A. Douglas (1813–1861) American politician

Fourth Lincoln-Douglass Debate http://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate4.htm (September 1858)
1850s

James Eastland photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“Now, I say to you, my fellow-citizens, that in my opinion the signers of the Declaration had no reference to the negro whatever when they declared all men to be created equal. They desired to express by that phrase, white men, men of European birth and European descent, and had no reference either to the negro, the savage Indians, the Fejee, the Malay, or any other inferior and degraded race, when they spoke of the equality of men. One great evidence that such was their understanding, is to be found in the fact that at that time every one of the thirteen colonies was a slaveholding colony, every signer of the Declaration represented a slave-holding constituency, and we know that no one of them emancipated his slaves, much less offered citizenship to them when they signed the Declaration, and yet, if they had intended to declare that the negro was the equal of the white man, and entitled by divine right to an equality with him, they were bound, as honest men, that day and hour to have put their negroes on an equality with themselves.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Attributed at a few sites to a debate in Peoria, Illinois with Stephen Douglas on 16 October 1858. No historical record of such a debate actually exists, though there was a famous set of speeches by both in Peoria on 16 October 1854, but transcripts of Lincoln's speech http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;type=simple;rgn=div1;q1=cleaver;view=text;subview=detail;sort=occur;idno=lincoln2;node=lincoln2%3A282 on that date do not indicate that he made such a statement. It in fact comes from a speech made by Douglas in the third debate http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;type=simple;rgn=div1;q1=fejee;view=text;subview=detail;sort=occur;idno=lincoln3;node=lincoln3%3A17 against Lincoln at Jonesboro, Illinois on 15 September 1858.
Misattributed

George Fitzhugh photo

“In the last place, the negro race is inferior to the white race, and living in their midst, they would be far outstripped or outwitted in the chase of free competition.”

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) American activist

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 84

Richard Wright photo
Marcus Garvey photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“As a white man is to a negro so is a negro to a crocodile; and as the negro may rightfully treat the crocodile, so may the white man rightfully treat the negro. This”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: So that saying, "in the struggle between the negro and the crocodile," &c., is made up from the idea that down where the crocodile inhabits a white man can't labor; it must be nothing else but crocodile or negro; if the negro does not the crocodile must possess the earth; [Laughter; ] in that case he declares for the negro. The meaning of the whole is just this: As a white man is to a negro so is a negro to a crocodile; and as the negro may rightfully treat the crocodile, so may the white man rightfully treat the negro. This very dear phrase coined by its author, and so dear that he deliberately repeats it in many speeches, has a tendency to still further brutalize the negro, and to bring public opinion to the point of utter indifference whether men so brutalized are enslaved or not.

Frantz Fanon photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“The proposition that there is a struggle between the white man and the negro contains a falsehood. There is no struggle.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)
Context: The proposition that there is a struggle between the white man and the negro contains a falsehood. There is no struggle. If there was, I should be for the white man. If two men are adrift at sea on a plank which will bear up but one, the law justifies either in pushing the other off. I never had to struggle to keep a negro from enslaving me, nor did a negro ever have to fight to keep me from enslaving him. They say, between the crocodile and the negro they go for the negro. The logical proportion is therefore; as a white man is to a negro, so is a negro to a crocodile; or, as the negro may treat the crocodile, so the white man may treat the negro. The 'don't care' policy leads just as surely to nationalizing slavery as Jeff Davis himself, but the doctrine is more dangerous because more insidious.

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