William Dean Howells (The Dean of American Letters) Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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From the day of its birth, the anomaly of slavery plagued a nation which asserted the equality of all men, and sought to derive powers of government from the consent of the governed. Within sound of the voices of those who said this lived more than half a million black slaves, forming nearly one-fifth of the population of a new nation.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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There was no United States before slavery. I am sure somebody can make some sort of argument about modern French identity and slavery and North Africa, but there simply is no American history before black people.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
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Radical thought has inspired many of the great political and social reform movements in American history, from ending slavery to establishing the minimum wage.
Carl Bernstein
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Is America truly a democracy? Has America ever been a democracy with the institution of slavery?
Tatyana Ali
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These Scriptures, therefore, are infinitely far from justifying the slavery under consideration; for it cannot be made to appear that one in a thousand of these slaves has done any thing to forfeit his own liberty.
Samuel Hopkins
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Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!
Patrick Henry
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I walked around feeling, in a sense, that people of color, we began at the bottom of a slave ship. We were enslaved; we picked cotton. There was Honest Abe, who wore a top hat and was taller than anyone and who said, 'Enough is enough; slavery must end.' And then, black people could stand up again. But after that, we didn't catch up.
Nate Parker
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I think that slavery is wrong, morally, socially and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.
Abraham Lincoln
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I excavate history. I look at lives buried under too much silence. Periods of time, like slavery, have to be revisited, reimagined, so we can move through them.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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The Confederacy stands for slavery and the Union for freedom.
Abraham Lincoln
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Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue.
Abraham Lincoln
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The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. ... Freedom and slavery are mental states. Therefore, the first thing to say to yourself: 'I shall no longer accept the role of a slave. I shall not obey orders as such but shall disobey them when they are in conflict with my conscience'.'
Mahatma Gandhi
