Thomas Jefferson on Slavery
1743–1826 United States
← All quotes by Thomas Jefferson
5 quotes
But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.
The abolition of the evil is not impossible; it ought never therefore to be despaired of. Every plan should be adopted, every experiment tried, which may do something towards the ultimate object.
Letter to Frances Wright (1825)
Yet the hour of emancipation is advancing, in the march of time. It will come.
Letter to Edward Coles (1814)
I congratulate you, my dear friend, on the law of your state for suspending the importation of slaves, and for the glory you have justly acquired by endeavoring to prevent it forever. This abomination must have an end, and there is a superior bench reserved in heaven for those who hasten it.
Letter to Edward Rutledge (1787)
What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment, be deaf to all those motives whose powers supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.