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William Lloyd Garrison

The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it is to usurp the prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right to his own body — to the products of his own labor — to the protection of law — and to the common advantages of society. It is piracy to buy or steal a native African, and subject him to servitude. Surely, the sin is as great to enslave an American as an African.

William Lloyd Garrison, “Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-​Slavery Convention,” speech in Philadelphia (December 6, 1833).

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