Antebellum Slavery
Benjamin F. Hicks (1846-1925)
Benjamin F. Hicks is a 19th-century African inventor in Virginia who was born into slavery to Lottie Ricks and an...
John Brown (AKA ‘Fed’ and ‘Benford’) (1818-1876)
John Brown (also known as “Fed” and “Benford”) of Southampton County, Virginia is best remembered as an escaped enslaved person...
(1861) Alexander H. Stephens, “Cornerstone Speech”
Image Ownership: Public Domain On March 21, 1861, after seven states had seceded from the United States, two weeks after...
(1857) Abraham Lincoln, “The Dred Scott Decision and Slavery”
The Dred Scott Decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857 was supposed to end the...
(1858) Abraham Lincoln, “A House Divided”
On June 16, 1858, only three hours after the Illinois Republican Party nominated him as its candidate for the United...
(1787) Gouverneur Morris, “The Curse of Slavery”
Image Ownership: Public Domain The Constitutional Convention in 1787 debated the institution of slavery. In the speech below Gouverneur Morris,...
(1860) Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “A Slave’s Appeal”
In an address to the Judiciary Committee of the State Legislature of New York, Elizabeth Cady Stanton compares the condition...
The Other Hermitage: The Enslaved at the Andrew Jackson Plantation
Most visitors who tour the Hermitage outside Nashville, Tennessee come to the historic site because it is the home of...
(1852) Frederick Douglass, “What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July”
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass was invited to address the citizens of his hometown, Rochester, New York. Whatever the...
