Civil rights

“ My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. ”

“ In the opposite class of moral beings, we have placed an equality of civil rights, freedom of religion, and of inquiry, division of power, national influence or sovereignty, knowledge, uncorrupted representation, and actual responsibility. This enumeration of a few individuals used to explain our reasoning, and not as including entire classes. ”

“ Of course, we know that as long as a people is striving for its civil rights, for equality of right before the law, there is a definite objective goal. Now, in theory at least, these things have been attained, and we are confronted to-day with the more difficult task of adjusting the interests, without impairing the rights, of the individual man. ”

“ In the last analysis civil rights depend for their maintenance and enforcement upon a realization of their value by the whole people and the willingness of every citizen to grant to others the rights which he claims for himself. ”

“ In the Absolute form of the State, where all the powers of all men are called into activity for the necessary purpose of the whole community, each Individual binds all others just in so far as he is bound by them: all have equal Civil Rights or Civil Freedom; and each Individual is thus at once a complete Citizen and a complete Subject;—and, for the same reason, all are Citizens and Subjects in like manner. ”

“ So tonight I urge every public official, every religious leader, every business and professional man, every workingman, every housewife I urge every American to join in this effort to bring justice and hope to all our people and to bring peace to our land. ”

“ Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the natural rights of others. Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. ”

“ The State shall guarantee equality of human and civil rights and freedoms irrespective of origin, social and property status, race, nationality, sex, education, language, political convictions, religion, creed, occupation, residence and other circumstances. ”

“ The effects of the late civil strife have been to free the slave and make him a citizen. Yet he is not possessed of the civil rights which citizenship should carry with it. This is wrong, and should be corrected. To this correction I stand committed, so far as Executive influence can avail. ”

“ These I conceive to be civil rights or rights of Compact, and are distinguishable from Natural rights, because in the one we act wholly in our own person, in the other we agree not to do so, but act under the guarantee of society. ”

“ We invoke you gentlemen, to show the same kindly feeling towards us, a race long oppressed, and in demonstration of this humane and just feeling, I implore you, give support to the Civil Rights Bill, which we have been asking at your hands, lo! ”

“ They repeat, as the fundamental maxim of our civil policy, that all men are born free and equal, and quote from our Declaration of Independence, "that men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." ”

“ Four millions of them have just emerged from slavery into freedom....It may also be asked whether it is necessary that they should be declared citizens in order that they may be secured in the enjoyment of the civil rights proposed to be conferred by the bill. ”

“ When a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen, or a man, are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected. ”

“ that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on our opinions in physics or geometry; ”

“ A history of civilization could be written around the derivation of the privileges that constitute our Bill of Rights. The emphasis would be not on rulers and governments but on the struggle mankind has waged for centuries to obtain recognition of the rights of individual men. ”

“ We may now, then, advance a step in our conception of civil liberty. It is the status in which we find the true adjustment of rights between classes and individuals. Historically, the conception of civil liberty has been constantly changing. The notion of rights changes from one generation to another and the conception of civil liberty changes with it. ”

“ Wherefore, since the law is the bond of civil society, and the justice of the law equal, by what rule can the association of citizens be held together, if the condition of the citizens be not equal? For if the fortunes of men cannot be reduced to this equality—if genius cannot be equally the property of all—rights, at least, should be equal among those who are citizens of the same republic. ”

“ This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. ”

“ This being the case, the institution of civil society is for the purpose of making an equalization of powers that shall be parallel to, and a guarantee of the equality of rights. The laws of a country when properly constructed apply to this purpose. ”

“ He concluded the appeal with these words:—It becomes every man who properly appreciates his civil and religious rights and privileges, and those of posterity after him, to give his name, his influence, and exertions, in the final effort to place those rights and privileges upon the broad foundation of equal justice to all classes of the inhabitants. ”

“ The question of human rights and the civil and political equality of all men shall be a first consideration with us, and we shall go to the aid of the class of men of like faith on these points, it matters not in what political party they may be found. ”

“ This Society shall aim to elevate the character and condition of the people of color, by encouraging their intellectual, moral, and religious improvement, and by removing public prejudice,--that thus they may, according to their intellectual and moral worth, share an equality with the whites of civil and religious privileges; but this Society will never in any way, countenance the oppressed in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force. ”

“ The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. ”

“ There is today, in connection with rights, the wide prevalence of the philosophy that rights are granted to individuals in order that they may develop their talents for competent voluntary cooperation in the thought and action essential to the strength of society, to general welfare, and to the very endurance of civil liberties themselves. ”

“ Complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil, political and public rights should be established and effectually maintained throughout the Union by efficient and appropriate State and Federal legislation. Neither the law nor its administration should admit any discrimination in respect of citizens by reason of race, creed, color or previous condition of servitude. ”

“ And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free. ”

“ Can we, sir, by mingling bond with free, black spirits with white, like Shakspeare's witches in Macbeth, form a more perfect Union, and insure domestic tranquility? Secondly, to establish justice. Is justice to be established by subjecting half mankind to the will of the other half? Justice, sir, is blind to colors, and weighs in equal scales the rights of all men, whether white or black. Thirdly, to provide for the common defense, and secure the blessings of liberty. ”

“ Now, I appeal to-day to every poor man; I appeal to-day to every laboring man, and I ask him, is there another country on this globe where you can have equal rights with others? There is another thing; do you want a Government of law or of brute force? In which part of this country do you find law supreme? In which part of this country can a man find justice in the courts; in the North or in the South? ”

“ No, fellow countrymen!—we must be all free, or all slaves together. We implore you, then, by all the obligations of interest, of patriotism, and of religion—by the remembrance of your Fathers—by your love for your children, to unite with us in maintaining our common, and till lately, our unquestioned political rights. ”

“ Equality, freedom, and independence constituted the very atmosphere of their being and, in their dealings with their own race, the rights of each individual, and his personal freedom, were universally acknowledged. ”

“ All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that, though the will of the majority is, in all cases, to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression. ”

“ Join us, to use such moral means as to correct public sentiment throughout the region where slavery exists, and to impress upon the people of the Free states a manly sense of their own rights. Join us, to place "just men" in all our public offices; men whose example a whole people may safely imitate. ”

“ Accordingly, all the leading reformers begin by piously reiterating certain phrases about equal rights for all and special privileges for none, and of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. ”

“ That while we welcome to legal freedom the recent slaves, we solemnly remonstrate against all State or National legislation which may exclude them from any locality, or debar them from any rights or privileges as free and equal citizens of a common Republic. ”

“ In all social relations we should have the utmost liberty—but public duties should be discharged and public rights should be recognized, without the slightest discrimination on account of race or color. ”

“ Would he be admitted to an equal share in your political rights?—would he ever be allowed to cross the threshold of your doors?—would any of you give your daughter to his son, or your son to his daughter?—would you, in any one particular, admit him to the footing of equality which any man with a white skin would claim, whose ability and worth had so raised him from the lower degrees of the social scale. ”

“ They who have been trained in the school of anti-slavery; they who, for the last thirty years, have discussed the whole question of human rights, which involves every other question of trade, commerce, finance, political economy, jurisprudence, morals and religion, are the true statesmen for the new republic—the best enunciators of our future policy of justice and equality. ”

“ Now, the essence of citizenship is the exercise of political rights; the right to a voice in government, to say what shall be done with your taxes, and the right to express your own needs. If you are denied these rights you are not a citizen. ”

“ Nothing need be said to shew the value of the three kinds of liberty which I have distinguished under the names of Physical, Moral, and Religious Liberty. They are, without doubt, the foundation of all the happiness and dignity of men, as reasonable and moral agents, and the subjects of the Deity.—It is, in like manner, true of Civil Liberty, that it is the foundation of the whole happiness and dignity of men as members of civil society, and the subjects of civil government. ”

“ We are literally scourged beyond the beneficent range of both authorities—human and divine. We plead for our rights, in the name of the immortal declaration of independence, and of the written constitution of government, and we are answered with imprecations and curses. ”

“ Society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. ”

“ You may develop the great national idea, the equality of all men; may frame a government which shall secure man's unalienable rights. It is for you to organize the rights of man, thus balancing into harmony the man and the many, to organize the rights of the hand, the head, and the heart. ”

“ The minority, sir, are contending for the rights of mankind; what, then, are the majority contending for? If the minority are contending for the rights of mankind, the majority must be contending for the doctrines of tyranny and slavery. ”