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There can be no fanatics in the cause of genuine liberty. Fanaticism is excessive zeal. There may be, and have been fanatics in false religion – in the bloody religions of the heathen.

— Thaddeus Stevens

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Slavery

More quotes by Thaddeus Stevens

Every humane and patriotic heart must grieve to see a bloody and causeless rebellion, costing thousands of human lives and millions of treasure.

I never thought of it that way, but it does relieve God Almighty of a heavy responsibility.

John Brown deserves to be hung for being a hopeless fool! He attempted to capture Virginia with seventeen men when he ought to know that it would require at least twenty-five.

You must be a bastard for I knew your mother's husband and he was a gentleman and honest man.

I wished that I were the owner of every southern slave, that I might cast off the shackles from their limbs, and witness the rapture which would excite them in the first dance of their freedom.

All Thaddeus Stevens quotes →

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We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.

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What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?

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

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thaddeus Stevens (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.