Abolitionists quotes
From Dixiepedia: The PC-Free Encyclopedia
At a December 1859 rally in Boston to commemorate John Brown’s murderous raid at Harper's Ferry, a Reverend Wheelock said that Harper’s Ferry inaugurated "a new era of the anti-slavery cause," in which "to moral agitation will be added physical, to argument, action! For other devoted men will follow in the wake of John Brown, and carry on to its full results the work he has begun." John Andrew, who raised money for Brown’s legal defense, declared, "'This is the eternal and heaven sustained nature of the irrepressible conflict.'" (Carpenter, Logic of History, pg. 71, emphasis added.)
Ralph Waldo Emerson called Brown "the new saint awaiting his martyrdom, who … will make the gallows more glorious than the cross." (Reneham, The Secret Six, pg. 216) Then Emerson said: "[I]f any citizen of that State is summoned as a witness to Virginia, the process of law must be resisted by force, … we must go back to the original right of resistance and revolution, and nullify the constitution, and the laws!" (Carpenter, Logic of History, pg. 72.)
Horace Greeley says: "John Brown, dead, will live in millions of hearts. ... As to the 'irrepressible conflict,' who does not see that this sacrifice must inevitably intensify it progress and hasten its end? ... Let us be reverently grateful for the privilege of living in a world rendered noble by the daring of heroes, the suffering of mortals - among whom let none doubt that history will accord an honorable niche to Old John Brown!" Senator Wilson says: I tell you, fellow-citizens, the Harper's Ferry outrage was the legitimate consequence of the teachings of the Republican party." Elizur Wright, defender of John Andrew, says: "In my opinion, John Brown was gloriously right in what he did at Harper's Ferry; and if he erred at all, he erred by being too tender-hearted and too much afraid of shedding innocent blood." Richmond Enquirer, October 16th 1860, pg. 2, col. 4.
“Small-pox is a nuisance; strychnine is a nuisance; mad dogs are a nuisance; slavery is a nuisance; slaveholders are a nuisance, and so are slave-breeders; it is our business, nay, it is our imperative duty, to abate nuisances; we propose, therefore, with the exception of strychnine, which is the least of all these nuisances, to exterminate this catalogue from beginning to end.” Helper, The Impending Crisis, pg. 139
"The negroes, ... in nine cases out of ten, would be delighted with an opportunity to cut their masters' throats.” Helper, The Impending Crisis, pg. 149
John Sherman (Republican nominee for Speaker of the US House of Representatives) on Helper’s book: “I have recently read that book. … It is imminently proper for circulation.” Richmond Enquirer, April 20th 1860, pg. 1, col. 7.
How Lincoln loves: "I have hated slavery as much as any Abolitionist. (Lincoln July 17th July 1856). Helper: Slaveholders are a nuisance. It is our business (that is, the business of the Republican party) to abate nuisances [See Helper’s Impending Crisis, pg. 139.]
John Andrew: "John Brown was right." [J. A. Andrew, Republican candidate for Governor of Massachusetts]
Wilson: "I tell you that the agitation of this question will continue while the foot of a slave presses the soil of the American Republic." Charleston Mercury, October 17th 1860, pg. 4, col. 4-5.
