One fact; it is impossible for a person to pass through a slave state, if he has eyes open, without beholding every day cruelties repugnant to humanity.
~ Lemuel Sapington (January 21, 1839)

If that form of government, that system of social order is not wrong—if those laws of the Southern States, by virtue of which slavery exists there, and is what it is, are not wrong—nothing is wrong.
~ Leonard Bacon (1846)

Can you look forward to the future of our country and imagine any state of things in which, with slavery still existing, we should be assured of permanent peace? I cannot. We can constitutionally extirpate slavery at this time. But if we fail to do this, then unless we intend hereafter to violate the Constitution, we shall have a fugitive slave law in operation whenever the war is over. Shall the North have sacrificed a hundred thousand lives and two thousand millions of treasure to come to that at last? Not even a guaranty of peace purchased at so enormous a cost? After voluntary exertions on the part of our people to which the history of the world furnishes no parallel, is the old root of bitterness still to remain in the ground, to sprout and bear fruit in the future as it has borne fruit in the past?
~ Robert D. Owen (September 17, 1862)

[T]o the principles of the Abolitionists … can we alone look with any hope of success to put down the “horrible” system of human robbery & oppression.
~ William H. Brisbane (January, 1840)

Now a common evil certainly implies a common right to remedy; and where is the remedy to be found, if the South in all their speeches and writings repeat that slavery must exist—if the Colonization Society re-echo, in all their Addresses and Reports, that there is no help for the evil, and it is very wicked to hint that there is—and if public opinion here brands every body as a fanatic and madman, who wishes to inquire what can be done? The supineness of New-England on this subject, reminds me of the man who being asked to work at the pump, because the vessel was going down, answered, “I am only a passenger.”
~ Lydia M. Child (1833)

The more I look at it, the more enormous does it appear a violation of all the laws of God and man at once. A complete annihilation of justice. An inhumane abuse of power.
~ Charles C. Jones (September 8, 1829)

Q5. Does it lessen the criminality and wickedness of reducing our fellow creatures to the abject state of slavery, and continuing them therein, because the practice is tolerated by the laws of the country we live in?

A. No! by no means. Because, every rational creature knows, or ought to know, that no laws of men or nations, can alter the nature of immutable justice. The criminality remains as great in all cases of slavery, when inflicted without any criminality of the individual made a slave, under the sanction of law, as when it is not; and in some cases, greater: as in the instance of those governments, where they are not only guilty of the cruelty and oppression of reducing, by mere power, without any possible plea or right; their fellow-creatures who have equally a right with themselves of liberty, and the purchase of redemption by a Saviour’s blood, to the abject and wretched state of slaves, but are adding sin to sin, by making and continuing cruel laws to hold them still longer under the galling yoke.
~ Elias Hicks (1814)

Starve not your epithets against slavery, through fear or parsimony: let them be heavy, robust and powerful. It is a waste of politeness to be courteous to the devil; and to think of beating down his strongholds with straws is sheer insanity. The language of reform is always severe—unavoidably severe; and simply because crime has grown monstrous, and endurance has passed it bounds. But after the reform has been effected, then all agree that no terms can be too strong against the corruption or oppression which has been put down.
~ William L. Garrison (May 23, 1833)