Despite the fact that America's Founders considered slavery immoral and unjust, many of them owned slaves. The leading Founders sought by their words and deeds, as Abraham Lincoln stated, to put slavery "on the course of ultimate extinction." Constitutional compromises made with the institution of slavery were done for the sake of the Union devoted to the principle that "all men are created equal." Principles guided the compromise, in the hope that slavery could be contained and eventually extinguished.
Unlike the Founders and Abraham Lincoln, who saw slavery as a gross injustice and a contravention of the natural law, many Southern political and intellectual leaders embraced the institution as a "positive good" for both slaves and their masters. As Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens said, slavery was the "cornerstone" of the Confederacy.
"The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state."—Thomas Jefferson, "A Summary View of the Rights of British America"
"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory."—The Northwest Ordinance
"There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it."—George Washington, "Letter to Robert Morris"
"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?"—Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII: Manners"
"Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils."—Benjamin Franklin, "An Address to the Public from the Pennsylvania Abolition Society"
"We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man."—James Madison, "Speech at the Constitutional Convention"
"When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-government—that is despotism."—Abraham Lincoln, "Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act"
"If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal;" and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another."—Abraham Lincoln, "Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act"
"What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle—the sheet anchor of American republicanism."—Abraham Lincoln, "Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act"
"'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."—Abraham Lincoln, "A House Divided"
"This is part of the evidence that the fathers of the Government expected and intended the institution of slavery to come to an end. They expected and intended that it should be in the course of ultimate extinction."—Abraham Lincoln, "Seventh Lincoln-Douglas Debate"
"If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality—its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension—its enlargement."—Abraham Lincoln, "Address at Cooper Institute"
"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition."—Alexander Stephens, "Cornerstone Speech"
"But I take a higher ground. I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good."—John C. Calhoun, "Speech on Reception of Abolition Petitions"
"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition."—Alexander Stephens, "Cornerstone Speech"
"I turn to the political; and here I fearlessly assert that the existing relation between the two races in the South, against which these blind fanatics are waging war, forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political institutions."—John C. Calhoun, "Speech on Reception of Abolition Petitions"
"All men are not created. According to the Bible, only two—a man and a woman—ever were—and of these one was pronounced subordinate to the other. All others have come into the world by being born, and in no sense, as I have shown, either free or equal."—John C. Calhoun, "Speech on the Oregon Bill"
"All the quantum of power on the part of the government, and of liberty on that of individuals, instead of being equal in all cases, must necessarily be very unequal among different people, according to their different conditions."—John C. Calhoun, "Speech on the Oregon Bill"
"Negro slavery exists in the South, and by the existence of negro slavery, the white man is raised to the dignity of a freeman and an equal."—Jefferson Davis, "Reply in the Senate to William Seward"
"They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal."—Alexander Stephens, "Cornerstone Speech"