"It has always been a great wrong that these men and their families should be held in bondage. We of the North have hitherto acquiesced in it, lest, in the endeavor to redress it in violation of the Constitution, greater evils might ensue"
About this Quote
“It has always been a great wrong” is moral language doing legal work. Sekulow, a lawyer by training and temperament, opens with an apparently unequivocal condemnation of bondage, then immediately narrows the field of acceptable action: the real subject isn’t slavery so much as the boundaries of remedy. The sentence is built like a brief: concede the principle, contest the jurisdiction.
The most revealing move is the collective “We of the North,” a phrase that spreads responsibility thin while also staging a kind of courtroom confession. “Hitherto acquiesced” sounds almost clinical, as if complicity were a procedural choice rather than a political and ethical one. That diction matters: it keeps the speaker on the side of conscience without requiring the heat of repentance.
Then comes the controlling premise: redress must not come “in violation of the Constitution,” because that might trigger “greater evils.” This is the familiar American bargain in moments of moral crisis: condemn the injustice, then elevate institutional stability as the higher good. The subtext is risk management. Liberty is framed as a value, but order is framed as a constraint, and the latter quietly governs the former.
Contextually, the quote reads like the language of antebellum moderation (even when deployed later): a posture that tries to sound humane while policing the means of change. Its intent is less to end bondage than to define the terms on which abolition can be discussed, turning a human catastrophe into an argument about permissible procedure.
The most revealing move is the collective “We of the North,” a phrase that spreads responsibility thin while also staging a kind of courtroom confession. “Hitherto acquiesced” sounds almost clinical, as if complicity were a procedural choice rather than a political and ethical one. That diction matters: it keeps the speaker on the side of conscience without requiring the heat of repentance.
Then comes the controlling premise: redress must not come “in violation of the Constitution,” because that might trigger “greater evils.” This is the familiar American bargain in moments of moral crisis: condemn the injustice, then elevate institutional stability as the higher good. The subtext is risk management. Liberty is framed as a value, but order is framed as a constraint, and the latter quietly governs the former.
Contextually, the quote reads like the language of antebellum moderation (even when deployed later): a posture that tries to sound humane while policing the means of change. Its intent is less to end bondage than to define the terms on which abolition can be discussed, turning a human catastrophe into an argument about permissible procedure.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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