I care not by what measure you end the war. If you allow one single germ, one single seed of slavery to remain in the soil of America, whatever may be your object, depend upon it, as true as effect follows cause, that germ will spring up, that noxious weed will thrive, and again stifle the growth, wither the leaves, blast the flowers, and poison the fair fruits of freedom. Slavery and freedom cannot exist together.
ATTRIBUTION:
Ernestine L. Rose (1810–1892), U.S. suffragist and abolitionist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 2, ch. 16, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage (1882).
Speaking on May 14, 1863, at a national convention of the Woman’s National Loyal League.
