Stephen Douglas Quotes
I do not question Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief that the negro was made his equal, and hence is his brother, [audience laughter] but for my own part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother or any kin to me whatever
This was the first of the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The men were contesting for the U. S. Senate. Douglas won the election.
Stephen Douglas, 1813-1861, U. S. Congressman & U. S. Senator (Democrat, IL), First Debate with Abraham Lincoln, Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This became one of the most widely quoted statements of the 1960s and 1970s.
This quotation explains why so many of the Southern poor so actively supported the racist Slavery system even though they could not afford slaves and received no direct benefit from slavery or the discrimination against free Blacks. The poor were not at the bottom of the totem pole, and therefore had a dignity and social status, that the poor in a racially integrated society never possessed.
Eight years and a Civil War later, he had changed his mind and was the sponsor of the Civil Rights Act of 1866—the first Federal civil rights law in America. See {587711}.
Newsletter of the United Sons of Confederate Veterans
Captain W.W. Polk, commanding the Coast Guard revenue cutter Florida, wrote Treasury Secretary asking permission to employ a young Negro on board. Existing regulations prohibited such. The Negro in question was a free Black born in New York who was an “expert sailor for his age and competent to the duty of a boy of the first class.” Polk had hired the boy as a servant after he had worked at sea for another Captain. Good seamen were hard to come by, decision was extremely contentious. Ingham “compromised” by limiting the allowable role of Negroes at sea—a practice that lasted till the Second World War.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, he was told by a senator to lower his voice.
The racial inequality did cause a Black revolution in the 1960s. The arrival and influence of Martin Luther King, at the time Black revolution might have turned violent, and the willingness of a substantial number of whites to implement the Civil Rights revolution functioned as a safety valve so that there was substantial reform towards much more racial equality.
It was indeed the first government that was ever founded on that fallacious principle. In retrospect, it was amazing that more Southerners did not question why no other government in the history of the world based a society on that principle. The Southern hubris was a great failing for them.
Grady, a Georgian, prompted himself as a spokesman for the “New South” and while he did no advocate slavery and the brutality that had been inflicted on Southern Negroes, he was a strong white supremacist as this quotation demonstrates. He was only “liberal” compared with the total revanchist racists. However, when in the North he spoke kindly about the Negro. See Quotation 643652.
Under the previous Republican administrations, virulent and overt racists were not generally appointed especially as they were generally then Democrats. However, when Woodrow Wilson was elected president, he not only appointed many overt racists but he himself may have been one of the most racist Presidents every to inhabit the white House. He fired almost all the Blacks who held positions in the Federal government.
The president was commenting on a Donald Trump campaign statement that African American were in the worst shape in history when the reality was just the opposite
Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. He was one of two Democratic Party nominees for president in the 1860 presidential election, which was won by Republican Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in the 1858 United States Senate election in Illinois, known for the Lincoln–Douglas debates. During the 1850s, Douglas was one of the foremost advocates of popular sovereignty, which held that each territory should be allowed to determine whether to permit slavery within its borders. Douglas was nicknamed the "Little Giant" and "Stevie D" because he was short in physical stature but a forceful and dominant figure in politics.
