Status Updates From What to the Slave is the Fo...

The Founding Fathers “loved their country better than their own private interests.”

Just as relevant a read in 2025. These words spark me to reflect on how doomed we are to repeat our history as we clearly have not learned from it.

“These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. […] It is not that "pure and undefiled religion" which is from above, and which is "first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy."

“The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem "the Fugitive Slave Law" as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle […]. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness.“

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity.”

“Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America!”