Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has…

I do think that some form of reparations for the descendants of American slavery would go a long way.

— Thomas Chatterton Williams

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could…

— Abraham Lincoln

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the…

— Abraham Lincoln

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.

— Abraham Lincoln

We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

— Abraham Lincoln

In every man's mind the good seeds of liberty are planted, and he who brings his fellow down so low, as to make him…

— Henry Highland Garnet

The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give…

— Abraham Lincoln

If any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly, those who desire it for others

— Abraham Lincoln

“The American Anti-Slavery Society, on the other hand, said the war was “waged solely for the detestable and horrible purpose of extending and perpetuating…

— Howard Zinn

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one.…

— Abraham Lincoln

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel.…

— Abraham Lincoln

Lawrence Hill, a cultural and spiritual descendant of West African griots, has used his vast storytelling talents to create an epic story that spans…

— Afua Cooper

“Historians who explore slavery's relationship to capitalism generally focus on the roles that men played in the development of both. But if we considered…

— Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

“American Slavery, American Freedom,”

— Andrew Levy

I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the…

— Abraham Lincoln