Henry Lewis Benning Quotes

Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North.

Although anti-Slavery is weak in political circles, it was never stronger with the masses of the people. The great heart of the country is sound. Thousands and millions of true men all over the North wait but the occasion for a practical demonstration of their power, to show how firm is their attachment to the principles of freedom, and how deeply they scorn the shallow fools who have the impertinence to talk about "crushing out" those principles. We expect to see Slavery go on pressing and pushing the advantages it derived from the adjustment of 1850, till a reaction is created that will again convulse the country to its center. Slavery is imperious, encroaching, truculent, belligerent. Its own conduct will thus ultimately generate an explosive force that must blow it to atoms.

There were slaves in the North which were tolerated for some time, but the South was built upon slavery.

… there is no right, and ought to be no inclination of the people of the free states to enter into the slave states, and interfere with the question of slavery at all.

Whatever may be the guilt of the South, the North is still more responsible for the existence, growth and extension of Slavery. In her hand has been the destiny of the Republic from the beginning. She could have emancipated every slave, long ere this, had she been upright in heart and free in spirit …. the sin .of this nation is not geographical--is not specially Southern--bus deep-seated and universal

The history of our Union is lesson enough, for every candid mind, of the fatal effects of every, the least, compromise with evil. The experience of the fifty years passed under it, shows us the slaves trebling in numbers;--slaveholders monopolizing the offices and dictating the policy of the Government;--prostituting the strength and influence of the Nation to the support of slavery here and elsewhere;--trampling on the rights of the free States, and making the courts of the country their tools. To continue this disastrous alliance longer is madness. The trial of fifty years only proves that it is impossible for free and slave States to unite on any terms, without all becoming partners in the guilt and responsible for the sin of slavery. Why prolong the experiment?

Slavery is right, just, and lawful and consequently practiced every day.

Those of us who always abhorred slavery as an atheistical iniquity, gladly we join in the exulting chorus of humanity over its downfall.

Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered. It was purposely so framed as to give no claim, no sanction to the claim, of property in man. If in its origin slavery had any relation to the government, it was only as the scaffolding to the magnificent structure, to be removed as soon as the building was completed.

It seems almost incredible that the advocates of liberty should conceive of the idea of selling a fellow creature to slavery.

This huge and terrible industry [the slave trade] was blessed by all churches and for a long time aroused absolutely no religious protest. . . . In the eighteenth century, a few dissenting Mennonites and Quakers in America began to call for abolition, as did some freethinkers like Thomas Paine.

I have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England if she is the first European nation which utterly abolishes it! I was told before leaving England that after living in slave countries all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the negro character.

My crime is that I will not go with the multitude to do evil. My singularity is that when I say that freedom is of God and slavery is of the devil, I mean just what I say. My fanaticism is that I insist on the American people abolishing slavery, or ceasing to prate on the rights of man.

Should I be worried about being a slave and being returned to slavery? Because certain things happened in the Constitution that had to change.

The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition; and Massachusettsis one of the confederated overseers to prevent their escape.

Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude. I am therefore utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territory, and heartily wish that every Constitutional measure may be adopted for the preservation of it.

I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states, due to the Union of the states, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem) to let the slavery of the other states alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear, that we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death--to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old.

Slavery is wrong. If Slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and Constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away.

Involuntary mental hospitalization is like slavery. Refining the standards for commitment is like prettifying the slave plantations. The problem is not how to improve commitment, but how to abolish it

I don't think the people of the slave states will ever consider the subject of slavery in its true light till some other argument is resorted to other than moral persuasion.

We want, and must have, a national policy, as to slavery, which deals with it as being wrong.

We ask for peace and freedom for the many men and women subject to old and new forms of enslavement on the part of criminal individuals and groups.

I could not comprehend the justice of that law, or that religion, which upholds or recognizes the principle of slavery.

Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, till not a slave shall on this earth be found.

I wish all men to be free. I wish the material prosperity of the already free which I feel sure the extinction of slavery would bring.