“Many in the South once believed that slavery was a moral and political evil. That folly and delusion are gone. We see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world.”

— John C. Calhoun

Regarding slavery (1838), as quoted in Brother Against Brother: The War Begins, (The Civil War series) vol. 1, William C. Davis, New York, NY, Time-Life Books, (1983) p. 40
1830s

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 "Many in the South once believed that slavery was a moral and political evil. That folly and delusion are gone. We see i…" by John C. Calhoun?

John C. Calhoun 15

7th Vice President of the United States 1782–1850

Related quotes

“Human experience has pronounced "black magic" a delusion. Its practice is criminal folly: criminal because its objective is evil, folly because the means employed are futile.”

Ernest Barnes (1874–1953) English mathematician and clergyman

Spiritualism and the Christian Faith (1918)

“They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of Abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.”

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

1830s, Illinois House Journal (1837)

“What, then, is the good of this "protection"? Why, the country have come to regard it, as they regard witchcraft, as a mere sound and a delusion. They no more regard your precautions against free trade, than they regard the horse-shoes that are nailed over the stables to keep the witches away from the horses.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/feb/27/commercial-policy-customs-corn-laws in the House of Commons (27 February 1846).
1840s

“We think Slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it. We think that a respect for ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly reach it. We think that species of labor an injury to free white men — in short, we think Slavery a great moral, social and political evil, tolerable only because, and so far as its actual existence makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that, it ought to be treated as a wrong.”

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

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: To us it appears natural to think that slaves are human beings; men, not property; that some of the things, at least, stated about men in the Declaration of Independence apply to them as well as to us. I say, we think, most of us, that this Charter of Freedom applies to the slave as well as to ourselves, that the class of arguments put forward to batter down that idea, are also calculated to break down the very idea of a free government, even for white men, and to undermine the very foundations of free society. We think Slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it. We think that a respect for ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly reach it. We think that species of labor an injury to free white men — in short, we think Slavery a great moral, social and political evil, tolerable only because, and so far as its actual existence makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that, it ought to be treated as a wrong.