Journal of John Quincy Adams (11 December 1838),
Context: The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation.
Source: Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America (2002), pp. 97–98
“It is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.”
Source: The Autobiography of Malcolm X
2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), The Right of Secession Is Not the Right of Revolution
2000s, 2003, Hope and Conscience Will Not Be Silenced (July 2003)
Context: By a plan known only to Providence, the stolen sons and daughters of Africa helped to awaken the conscience of America. The very people traded into slavery helped to set America free. My Nation's journey toward justice has not been easy, and it is not over. The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times. But however long the journey, our destination is set: liberty and justice for all.
“Vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery.”
Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun slavery—beware of enslaving others! If you can endure to do that, one would think you had been once upon a time a slave yourself. For Vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery. (41).
No. 11 (June 24, 1758)
The Idler (1758–1760)
“There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.”
The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child (1877)
Context: There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.
The history of man is simply the history of slavery, of injustice and brutality, together with the means by which he has, through the dead and desolate years, slowly and painfully advanced.
“Objectivism and the State: An Open Letter to Ayn Rand,” 1969
“Liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery.”
As quoted in Memoirs of the Private and Public Life of William Penn : Who Settled the State of Pennsylvania, and Founded the City of Philadelphia (1827) by S. C. Stevens, p. 117
