Emancipation

“ Let the work of abolition go forward, in a dignified and decent spirit. Let us argue; and, so far as we rightfully may, let us legislate. Let us bring the whole world’s sympathy up to the work of emancipation. ”

“ The genius of universal emancipation, bending from her lofty seat, invites you to accept the wreath of national independence. The voice of your friends, swelling upon the breeze, cries to you from afar—Raise your standard! assert your independence!! ”

“ I regard emancipation as the only possible method of putting a stop to it; for when both races are left to their own free choice the practice ceases. It has always been so and will be no different hereafter. ”

“ Do not refuse the offered emancipation, but 'if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.' Be not like the spiritless slaves, for whose servile choice the law provided, who had rather remain bond than go out free. ”

“ If ever she sighs over the slaves, it is to think of their emancipation. Poor creatures, to be emancipated!
May God bless you, dear dearest! Shall I ever be better, I wonder, than the torment of your life? It is I who want to be ‘justified,’ and not you my beloved,—except as to your good sense for having made such a choice. ”

“ The truth that any one man—whatever his place in society, whatever the colour of his skin—has as much right as any other to be treated as an end and that no man was merely a means to the enjoyment or happiness or well-being of another, was the charter for the emancipation of slaves. ”

“ That is good advice for any poor man, black or white. This picture of the signing of the Emancipation Act can commemorate all of which it is capable, only if the privilege of freedom be embraced as the opportunity of manly toil, and the occasion of all patient effort to become the equal of other men, not in external advantages and rights half so much as in capacity and character. ”

“ As usual, the emancipated slaves thought that every kind of prosperity, happiness, and well-being was to be the immediate result of their emancipation;—that no further self-sacrifice was needed;—that a millennium of universal cakes and ale had arrived;—and all troubles, at all events all troubles connected with the governing of the country, had been got rid of for ever. ”

“ The spirit of emancipation is striding over the main land, walking upon the waters, and planting its foot, upon one dark island after another. Let us hope—better to do that, than mischief. Let us rejoice, that, as the Scotch say, there is a God aboon a’—better to do that, than spit upon our Bibles, and scoff at law and order. ”

“ They are ready to withdraw from the struggle instead of finishing the work of emancipation! The people now deplore their rebellion; they are ready to curse the councilmen who have sacrificed their repose and their property, and even exposed their lives in the effort of emancipation. They imagine that by humbly submitting to the Regent, that by meekly resuming their yoke, the ills they now suffer from will vanish. Perchance to-morrow the people will be dragging me to the scaffold, me who so recently was their idol! ”

“ Everything invites emancipation. The grandeur of the design, the vast stake we hold; the national domain, the new importance of Liberia; the manifest interest of the slave states; the religious effort of the free states; the public opinion of the world;—all join to demand it. ”

“ Today it means not only material emancipation, too; it comes as the summing up of all those lines of thought and action which for three hundred years have been making towards freedom; it means fullness of being, the free life. ”

“ But in contending for the birthright of freedom, we have learned to feel for the bondage of others, and in the libations we offer to the goddess of liberty, we contemplate an emancipation of the slaves of this country, as honorable to themselves as it will be glorious to us. ”

“ For myself I have never ceased to be grateful to the Divine Providence for the privilege of taking a part in that work.
And now for more than twenty years we have had a free country. No slave treads its soil. The anticipated dangerous consequences of complete emancipation have not been felt. The emancipated class, as a whole, have done wisely, and well under circumstances of peculiar difficulty. ”

“ Immediate, instant emancipation is the word and the principle, whatever comes. There is no law above it—none that must not give way to it. Let the public judge, whether this principle be not incendiary, and sanguinary, in the most revolting aspects. ”

“ Emancipation before the law, though it may be a right which man has no right to withhold, is to them little more than a mockery until they achieve emancipation in the minds and good will of the people--'the people,' did I say? ”

“ Proprietors who dread emancipation! show to your people a little of that benevolence which so promptly subdues those who are unaccustomed to it, and you will find them docile and industrious as freemen. ”

“ Managed in a modern style the emancipation of the slave's mind is the best way of preventing the emancipation of the slave. Teach him to worry about whether he wants to be free, and he will not free himself. ”

“ Only the emancipation, the freeing and heartening of the vital energies of all the people will redeem us. In all that I may have to do in public affairs in the United States I am going to think of towns such as I have seen in Indiana, towns of the old American pattern, that own and operate their own industries, hopefully and happily. ”

“ History does not furnish an example of emancipation under conditions less friendly to the emancipated class, than this American example. Liberty came to the freedmen of the United States, not in mercy but in wrath ”

“ If I have been at all instrumental in checking the further extension of the practice of enslaving those intelligent and inoffensive creatures, and in preparing the way for the emancipation of all, it will be the proudest reflection and the greatest solace of my declining years. ”

“ Taking the fact of emancipation as fixed, and to be realized, and that there will here be a race of freedom rapidly rising civilization and enlightenment, we are confronted with the question— Is this country to be the ultimate home of this people ? ”

“ Well, I console myself with thinking that the people—the American people, at least —is about as wise collectively as less numerous collections of individuals, and that the people has really declared emancipation, and is only puzzling how to carry it into effect. ”

“ And as if, instead of no two persons being agreed upon the subject, all the ablest and wisest men in the country were not cordially agreed that complete emancipation is the only remedy for the evils that exist, and that they are opposed by the most despicable faction which ever existed, animated by the most base and sordid motives. ”

“ I stand amazed at the rapid strides which your people have made since emancipation, at your industry, your acquisition of property and land, your zeal for education, your self-respecting but unresentful attitude toward those who formerly claimed to be your masters, your pathetic but manly appeal for just treatment and recognition. ”

“ If we are but true to ourselves, true to our cause, true to those sanctified principles that have been handed down to us by the patriots of the past, the day of our emancipation is at hand and the glory of a struggle nobly fought and won will be ours. ”

“ It furrowed the land deeper with its plows of Truth and Courage than had fallen to the lot of any other labor organization since time began, and the seeds of emancipation which it sowed broadcast are germinating and a new era is destined to dawn upon labor. ”

“ But, what is still more important, the emancipation of the slaves emancipated their masters also—emancipated all of us, North and South—and raised the proclamation of human equality by our country's fathers from a mockery and a shame to a reality. ”

“ They rejoiced to hear, that, in one nation at least of this fallen world, after the lapse of almost 6000 years, THE RIGHTS OF MAN were at last understood, and a solemn resolution to respect them had been unanimously adopted: that universal emancipation had been proclaimed to three millions of the human family. ”

“ And much of the essential value of all such speculations lies in this assumption of emancipation, lies in that regard towards human freedom, in the undying interest of the human power of self-escape, the power to resist the causation of the past, and to evade, initiate, endeavour, and overcome. ”

“ To make use of the clear exposition of an eminent advocate of immediate abolition, our plan of emancipation is simply this: "To promulgate the true doctrine of human rights in high places and low places, and all places where there are human beings; to whisper it in chimney corners, and to proclaim it from the house-tops, yea, from the mountain-tops; to pour it out like water from the pulpit and the press; to raise it up with all the food of the inner man, from infancy to gray hairs ”

“ The comfortable independence in which the townspeople of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had stoutly entrenched themselves, was the reward of a couple of centuries of persistent effort, in which they had steadily laboured at their double work of emancipation, freeing themselves on the one hand from the feudal yoke, and on the other from political servitude. ”

“ To abandon the struggle for private happiness, to expel all eagerness of temporary desire, to burn with passion for eternal things -- this is emancipation, and this is the free man's worship. ”

“ Immediate, universal emancipation is not impracticable, and numberless methods might and would at once be devised, if the people of your States were sincere when they profess to desire its accomplishment. ”

“ Another motto we have chosen is ‘UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION.’ Up to this time, we have limited its application to those who in this country are held by Southern taskmasters as marketable commodities, goods and chattels, and implements of husbandry. Henceforth we shall use it in its widest latitude: the emancipation of our whole race from the dominion of man, from the servitude of self, from the government of brute force, and from the bondage of sin. ”

“ The most horrible visions seemed to present themselves to the minds of people who, one would suppose, ought to have known better. Many educated and, otherwise, sensible persons appeared to believe that emancipation meant social equality. ”

“ To advocate emancipation on the ground that it would give us the support of the moral sentiment in all civilized countries, and thus deter governments, depending upon public opinion, from giving countenance and aid to those fighting for slavery, as I had done in my despatches to the government, would not have been fitting in a public appeal to the American people. ”

“ Among the many obstacles which have been brought to bear against emancipation, one of the most formidable has been the series of objections urged against it upon what has been supposed to be the slave's want of appreciation of liberty, and his ability to provide for himself in a state of freedom ”

“ The emancipation of the workers must be the work of the workers themselves—their newspapers repeat this every day,—but real emancipation consists in voting for a professional politician, in securing for him the means of obtaining a comfortable situation in the world, in subjecting oneself to a leader. ”

“ Yet even here I also became acquainted with some excellent people, both men and women, real Christians and true citizens of the world, who are silently labouring at the work of emancipation, wisely and effectually; assisting the slaves into the path of self-emancipation,—that is to say, giving opportunity to those slaves to acquire money, helping them to keep it, and encouraging them to industry and good conduct, with a view to their liberation at a certain time; in a few years perhaps, or it may be less, and afterwards giving them that freedom for which they have worked. ”

“ But these rabid advocates of universal equality and of immediate emancipation are but a very insignificant portion of that great body of American citizens, who look upon slavery with disapprobation and abhorrence. ”

“ With all these difficulties constantly before them, who can wonder that a kind-hearted planter, while gazing on the cheerful and happy faces of his well-fed and well-housed slaves, should look distrustfully at emancipation, and strive to justify to his conscience opposition to any plan, however gradual, which leads thereto. ”

“ A PORTION OF THE ADDRESS TO THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR BY THE AMERICAN CONVENTION FOR PROMOTING THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY, 1819 "The great work of emancipation is not to be accomplished in a day;—it must be the result of time, of long and continued exertions: it is for you to show by an orderly and worthy deportment that you are deserving of the rank which you have attained. ”

“ You will discover, too, the folly of longer maintaining your burdensome system, and the wisdom of heeding whilst you may, the counsel of the philanthropic, which urges you to just, generous, speedy, universal emancipation. ”

“ Many, no doubt, can appreciate liberty, and use it as wisely and well as any freeborn white: gradual emancipation would be one of the grandest schemes that could be propounded to human benevolence: it is rife with difficulty, but surely not impracticable. ”