Compromise Quote by Jefferson Davis

“The Constitution was a compromise between slaveholding interests of the South and moneyed interests of the North. For the purpose of uniting the thirteen…

— Howard Zinn

The Constitution...expressly recognizes the right to hold slaves as property in states where slavery exists. This, then, is not a question of general morality,…

— James Buchanan

But you answer, that the Constitution recognizes property in slaves. It would be sufficient, then, to reply, that this constitutional recognition must be void,…

— William H. Seward

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave in not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it.

— Abraham Lincoln

“...[at the Constitutional Convention] the States were divided into different interests not by their difference of size, but principally from their having or not…

— James Madison

From the standpoint of modern political science the slave holders were right in declaring that liberty can be given only to those who have…

— Charles Edward Merriam

Slavery existed before the formation of this Union. It derived from the Constitution that recognition which it would not have enjoyed without the confederation.…

— Jefferson Davis

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

..if the Northern states refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves,…

— Daniel Webster

“Slavery was a tradition embedded in the culture of the South and played a key economic role there. Its economic importance was the key…

— Andrew P. Napolitano

Civil rights, as we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the…

— St. George Tucker

The systematic, wanton, and long continued agitation of the slavery question, with the actual and threatened aggressions of the Northern States and a portion…

— Isham G. Harris