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Quotes of the Day for 18 December 2004 - Slavery

The thirteenth amendment to the US Constitution was proclaimed on this day in 1865, having been ratified by 27 of the 36 states then in the union. Slavery is such a rotten idea, in fact, that the rest of the states eventually ratified the amendment, although two of them waited until the 1990s (over 130 years) to finally sign on.

Freedom hath a thousand charms to show,
That slaves however contented never know.
     - William Cowper, 1731 - 1800

The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots.
     - Eric Fromm

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: A day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustices and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.
     - Frederick Douglass, 1817 - 1895

We were stolen, sold and brought together from the African continent. We got on the slave ships together. We lay back to belly in the holds of the slave ships in each others' excrement and urine together, sometimes died together, and our lifeless bodies thrown overboard together.
     - Maya Angelou

The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
     - Oscar Wilde, 1854 - 1900

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
     - Abraham Lincoln, 1809 - 1865

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