So we passed, hand-cuffed and in silence, through the streets of Washington through the Capital of a nation, whose theory of government, we are told, rests on the foundation of man’s inalienable right to life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness! Hail! Columbia, happy land, indeed!

— Solomon Northup

Solomon Northup Quotes

It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives. He cannot withstand the influence of habit and associations that surround him.

— Solomon Northup

To ask the master for a knife, or skillet, or any small convenience of the kind, would be answered with a kick, or laughed at as a joke. Whatever necessary article of this nature is found in a cabin has been purchased with Sunday money.

— Solomon Northup

So we passed, hand-cuffed and in silence, through the streets of Washington through the Capital of a nation, whose theory of government, we are told, rests on the foundation of man’s inalienable right to life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness! Hail! Columbia, happy land, indeed!

— Solomon Northup

My sufferings I can compare to nothing else than the burning agonies of hell!

— Solomon Northup

Life is dear to every living thing; the worm that crawls upon the ground will struggle for it.

— Solomon Northup

Credit leads a man into temptation. Cash down is the only thing that will deliver him from evil.

— Solomon Northup

Really, it was difficult to determine which I had most reason to fear – dogs, alligators or men!

— Solomon Northup

There have been hours in my unhappy life, many of them, when the contemplation of death as the end of earthly sorrow – of the grave as a resting place for the tired and worn out body – has been pleasant to dwell upon.

— Solomon Northup

My back is thick with scars for protesting my freedom.

— Solomon Northup

There are few sights more pleasant to the eye, than a wide cotton field when it is in the bloom. It presents an appearance of purity, like an immaculate expanse of light, new-fallen snow.

— Solomon Northup

I can speak of slavery only so far as it came under my own observation – only so far as I have known and experienced it in my own person.

— Solomon Northup

I could not comprehend the justice of that law, or that religion, which upholds or recognizes the principle of slavery;.

— Solomon Northup

Suffice it to say, during the whole long day I came not to the conclusion, even once, that the southern slave, fed, clothed, whipped and protected by his master, is happier than the free colored citizen of the North. To that conclusion I have never since arrived.

— Solomon Northup

What difference is there in the color of the soul?

— Solomon Northup

Is everything right because the law allows it?

— Solomon Northup
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