American Slavery

“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. … I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”

-- Thomas Jefferson (1785)

“I will tell the truth. A large majority of people in the Southern states do not consider slavery as even an evil.”

-- Peter Early (1806), Georgia congressman

[Source: Sean Wilentz, “The Rise of American Democracy”]