Quote

Slavery is something that is all too often swept under the carpet.

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.

You got to remember that slavery's very complex. It has a lot of levels to it.

If that form of government, that system of social order is not wrong - if those laws of the Southern States, by virtue of which slavery exists there, and is what it is, are not wrong - nothing is wrong.

I believe that modern slavery is the most outrageous assault on the rights of an individual. It is something that touches me deeply because I grew up in rural Brazil and could see first-hand how poverty forced people to work in harsh, exploitative conditions.

In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution is a moral & political evil in any country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages.

I can speak of slavery only so far as it came under my own observation - only so far as I have known and experienced it in my own person.

Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.

The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.

In those days, slavery was not looked upon, even in Quaker Philadelphia, with the shudder and abhorrence one feels towards it now.