Quote#Freedom
If the arm of the North had not caused the Bastille of slavery to…
Quote byAngelina Grimké · 1805–1879
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Speech at Pennsylvania Hall (1838).
English (original)
If the arm of the North had not caused the Bastille of slavery to totter to its foundation, you would not hear those cries. A few years ago, and the South felt secure, and with a contemptuous sneer asked, "Who are the abolitionists? The abolitionists are nothing?"
— Angelina Grimké
More from Angelina Grimké
But I ask no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of our brethren is, that they will take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright …
But remember you must be willing to suffer the loss of all things – willing to be the scorn and reproach of professor and profane. You must obey our great master’s injunction: “Fear not them that kill the body, and after that, have nothing …
I know you do not make the laws but I also know that you are the wives and mothers, the sisters and daughters of those who do.
The time to assert a right is the time when that right is denied.
Human beings have rights, because they are moral beings: the rights of all men grow out of their moral nature; and as all men have the same moral nature, they have essentially the same rights.
I appeal to you, my friends, as mothers; Are you willing to enslave your children? You start back with horror and indignation at such a question. But why, if slavery is no wrong to those upon whom it is imposed?