Oppressor

“ Yet it sometimes happens that the liberator of one age becomes the oppressor of the next. His reputation becomes so great—he is so revered and worshiped—that his followers, in his name, attack the hero who endeavors to take another step in advance.
The heroes of the Revolution, forgetting the justice for which they fought, put chains upon the limbs of others, and in their names the lovers of liberty were denounced as ingrates and traitors. ”

“ Will the oppressor let go the oppressed? Was there ever an instance? Can the annals of mankind exhibit one single example where rulers overcharged with power willingly let go the oppressed, though solicited and requested most earnestly? ”

“ That laws of changeless justice bind
Oppressor with oppressed;
And, close as sin and suffering joined,
We march to Fate abreast. ”

“ A spot of earth almost unknown to the geography of the age, destitute of all available resources, few in numbers, we remonstrated against oppression, and, when invaded by a numerous host, we dared to proclaim our independence and to strike for freedom on the breast of the oppressor. ”

“ Though all men but the red men will work for a master, they will not fight for an oppressor in the day of his need. Thus gigantic empires have crumbled into dust at the first touch of an invader's footstep. For petty, as for great oppressions, there is a day of retribution growing out of themselves. ”

“ Her rapid transition at the commencement of that period from being the prey of every conqueror to being the conqueror of all with whom she comes into contact, to being the oppressor instead of the oppressed, is almost without a parallel in the history of nations. ”

“ Man will submit to fate, circumstance, society, anything that comes impersonally over him; but against the personal oppressor, whether parent, schoolmaster, overseer, official chief, or king, he eternally rebels. ”

“ A Protestant musket kills as sure as a popish one; and an oppressor is an oppressor, to whatever church he belongs: The sword and the gun are of every church, and so are the instruments of oppression. ”

“ We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. ”

“ In rare instances, this sense of the nation's sufferings from a tyrant's oppression, have so wrought upon the sensitive spirit, as to stimulate it to the determination to achieve the country's freedom by the assassination of the oppressor. ”

“ Do you wish to serve tyranny, privilege—in a word, the oppressors? Remember that you are sons of the people; that force alone dragged you from the bosom of your desolated families; that, slaves of a stern discipline, you are forced to shoot down the oppressed, to protect the oppressors ”

“ Bear my contempt of oppressors.
Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.
Go to the bourgeoise who is dying of her ennuis,
Go to the women in suburbs. ”

“ Aroused in Thunder, awful they appear, With proud Deliverance stalking in their rear: While Tyrant Foes their pallid Fears betray, Shrink from their Arms, and give their Vengeance way; Sec, in the unequal War, OPPRESSORS fall, The Hate, Contempt, and endless Curse of all. ”

“ The oppressors, that is, those who take part in government, and those who profit by oppression, that is, the rich, no longer imagine, as they once did, that they are the elect of the world, and that they constitute the ideal of human happiness and greatness, to attain which was once the highest aim of the oppressed. ”

“ When words are sought by which to stigmatize the most odious despotism, exercised in the most odious manner, and all other comparisons are found inadequate, the despots are said to be like slave-masters, or slave-drivers. What, by a rhetorical license, the worst oppressors of the human race, by way of stamping on them the most hateful character possible, are said to be, these men, in very truth, are. ”

“ This is the age of the war of the oppressed against the oppressors, and every one of those ringleaders of the privileged gangs of murderers and swindlers, called Sovereigns, look to each other for aid against the common enemy, and suspend their mutual jealousies in the presence of a mightier fear. ”

“ All violent oppressors, all those that valued themselves as leaders of parties, saw, with an indignation which they durst not suffer to appear, that they were now at last dwindled into absolute insignificance. ”

“ We should stand a sad spectator of the conflict; and, whatever commiseration we might feel for the discomfiture of the oppressors, we should pray that the battle might end in giving freedom to the oppressed. ”

“ I believe that the cruelty which now seems so common may, in some degree, be attributed to the oppression which its exercisers themselves suffer; for every one who has studied the human mind will agree with me, that, with few exceptions, the oppressed become the hardest of oppressors. ”

“ It is to prevent and dissuade from acts of violence and injustice, and surely not to aggravate the sense of them, that such circumstances are noticed. Nay, it is charity towards the oppressors as well as the oppressed, to endeavor to convince the oppressors of their error—and how can this be done but by exhibiting the oppressions. ”

“ It is all for their wickedness; they have brought it upon themselves; they must bear it, for they must bear the blame of it. They are thus oppressed because they have been oppressors; they have dealt hardly with one another, each in his turn, as they have had power and advantage, and now the enemy shall come and deal hardly with them all. This sin of oppression, and violence, and wrong-doing, is here charged upon them, 1. ”

“ The ignorant and prejudiced promoters of this cruelty are still in a majority, and as long as I have strength remaining and a voice to plead the cause of the helpless and oppressed, you will ever find me in the foremost ranks of those who would strike down oppressors and discomfit the schemes of our ruthless and unscrupulous adversaries. ”

“ It is the nature of tyranny and rapacity never to learn moderation from the ill-success of first oppressions; on the contrary, all oppressors, all men thinking highly of the methods dictated by their nature, attribute the frustration of their desires to the want of sufficient rigor. ”

“ The only difference is that under a despotic form of government the authority is concentrated in a small number of oppressors and violence takes a cruder form; under constitutional monarchies and republics as in France and America authority is divided among a great number of oppressors and the forms assumed by violence is less crude, but its effect of making the disadvantages of authority greater than its advantages, and of enfeebling the oppressed to the furthest extreme to which they can be reduced with advantage to the oppressors, remains always the same. ”

“ And let no feuds divide you;
On tyrants pour your hate,
And common vengeance guide you.
Our foes should feel proud freemen’s steel,
For freemen’s rights contending;
Where’er they die, there let them lie,
To dust in scorn descending.
Thus may each traitor fall
Who dare as foe invade us;
Eternal fame to all
Who shall in battle aid us!
Proud land! shall she invoke
Another’s hand to right her?
No! her own avenging stroke
Shall backward roll the smiter.
Ye tyrant band, with ropes of sand
Go bind the rushing river;
More weak and vain your cursèd chain,
While God is freedom’s giver. ”

“ Let them deliver up to the fury of an infatuated people the man who, for these twenty years, has been the adversary of oppression; who talked to the French of liberty, of Constitution, of resistance, when his base calumniators were at nurse in the court of despotism and suckled with the milk of overbearing prejudices. ”

“ Who always turn again when they're opprest, And basely spoil the gay tyrannic jest; Tell kings—of Nature, Laws of God, and Right, Take up their arms, and with their tyrants fight. When passive thousands fall beneath the sword, And freely die at the imperial word, A stern, unyielding, self-defending few, While they resist, will ravel all the clew; Will all the engines of oppression awe, And trample pow'r beneath the feet of law. 'Tis always natural for men opprest, Whene'er occasion offers to resist; They're traitors else to truth and common sense, And rebels to the laws of Providence ”

“ Instead of placing yourself on the side of your government, on the side of law and order, you are going about Pinchbrook Harbor denouncing the legitimate government of your country, and pleading the cause of rebels and traitors.”
“Am I not at liberty to say what I please of the government?”
“In ordinary times, you are. Just now, the country is in a state of war, and he who is not for the flag is against it. You may criticize the government as its friend, but not as its foe. When armed men conspire against the peace of the land, he who pleads their cause is a traitor—nay, sir, don’t be angry ”

“ You see men marshalling armies, and making war with one another to destroy each other, and take possession of their territory and wealth. One man who is in possession of wealth, power, and authority, sees oppression exercised by kings; so he follows the example, as do rulers who exercise authority under their sovereign; then others in a still lower degree do the same; thus oppression treads upon the heels of oppression, and distress follows distress. ”

“ Come, as we are in a free nation, let us talk about the chains of slavery, tyranny's oppression, the morgue of aristocracy, and the fierté of those in authority; shall we not rise in arms against them "'Sblood! shall we not be rebels?" Stop. Let us first conquer a tyrant far stronger than any of these—a despot more despotic than any autocrat who ever existed. ”

“ Are you feeble, weak, subject to the oppression of the powerful? Here is that will arm in your defence those more mighty than the petty tyrant whom you fear. Are you splendid in your wishes, and desire the outward show of opulence? ”

“ Oppression guards the golden promise, and servile brutality is the only earnest of success. Then like a clarion note in the desert sounds the call of the Ideal. Strong and rousing rolls the battle-cry of Revolution. ”

“ I am with poor against rich, labour against employer, women against men; I fight beside all strikers, mutineers, and rebels.
I welcome foes; I desire criticism.
I loathe prejudice, either social or national; I repudiate all claims.
I demand freedom of action and leisure for reflection.
Facing Death, I would say: 'I have tasted all, tried all, dared all, suffered all, and I repent nothing.'
[2] Song of Revolt
Crowns are ashake,
The princes and the Kings are bending low,
And, round the world,
Before the blast of Freedom, thrones are hurled:
The People are awake! ”

“ For thirty years the sounds of war had been silent in our domain, but justice demanded that we interfere in behalf of a people who are struggling against oppression, and in the noble cause of humanity. ”

“ Fanned by opposition, fertilised by the red blood of the people, which vivifies everything on which it falls, the heresy would grow stronger, and stifle in its folds Annas, the government, and all his friends. ”

“ We have challenged oppression to show us its might;
We have strutted for years through the world as a race
That for God and for country, earth’s tyrants would face;
Now the gage is flung down, hate is loosed in the world. ”

“ This world is ours, and all that appears on the face of it; and when we do attack, we attack with irresistible force.
104. When a tyrant oppresses and insults a nation, we disdain to degrade ourselves by submitting to his will. ”

“ Is it not at least as true here, that the influence of exclusive privileges and extravagance in our governments, has increased, is increasing, and ought also to be diminished? Which is most oppressive, the influence of one man, or the influence of a combination between several thousand men, to rule and plunder a nation? ”

“ If, then, oppression has not quite subdued At once your prudence and your gratitude, If you yourselves conspire not your undoing, And don't deserve, and won't draw down your ruin, If yet to virtue you have some pretence, If yet ye are not lost to common sense, Assist your patriot in your own defence ”

“ At last she is becoming "as fair as the morn, as bright as the sun, and as terrible as an army with banners" to those who march under the black flag of oppression and wield the ruthless sword of injustice. ”

“ And while their efforts to throw off oppression are not repressed by a feeling that there is no power to which they can appeal, these efforts are kept under due restraints, by a consciousness that they cannot be unwisely exerted, except to the injury of the people themselves. ”

“ So in these later days it has been found wise, not to prohibit persons from giving expression to their views about our government, but to punish those who show by their words or writing that they are rebels against our government, endeavoring by their words to cause a revolution, to incite people to use force, bombs, or the torch to destroy our government. ”

“ A weight of oppression seemed to dull their minds and restrict their lungs. They were like creatures that listen furtively in hidden terror to catch the forewarning of some catastrophe, the nature of which they know not. ”

“ Has he not the right to remember that the form of oppression has merely been changed, and that the serf is not less abused from falling from the mighty hands of the tyrants, into the hooked claws of tyrannical weaklings? ”

“ We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary. The violence of those out [Pg 101] rages will always be proportioned to the ferocity and ignorance of the people; and the ferocity and ignorance of the people will be proportioned to the oppression and degradation under which they have been accustomed to live. ”