Civil Quote by Gavin Esler

Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other…

— Frederick Douglass

We can constitutionally extirpate slavery at this time.

— Robert Dale Owen

Every country ended slavery without civil war; US could have.

— Ron Paul

A lot of Americans have some view of the Constitution as just this thing that was handed down [intact]. But it really was the…

— Bill Vaughan

A prime part of the history of our Constitution is the story of the extension of constitutional rights to people once ignored or excluded.

— Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The Constitution was not made to fit us like a straitjacket. In its elasticity lies its chief greatness.

— Woodrow Wilson

It is only with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement that you begin to see different examinations of not only Reconstruction but slavery…

— Gerald Horne

The Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider it purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is…

— Frederick Douglass

Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been…

— John Quincy Adams

If slavery, limited as it yet is, now threatens to subvert the Constitution, how can we as wise and prudent statesmen, enlarge its boundaries…

— William H. Seward

The fact that slavery is written into the Constitution is about as entrenched a form of classism as you could possibly imagine.

— Beau Willimon

With one terrible exception, the Civil War, law and the Constitution have kept America whole and free.

— Anthony Lewis