Can you look forward to the future of our country and imagine any state of things in which, with slavery still existing, we should be assured of permanent peace? I cannot.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the impossibility of achieving lasting peace while injustice, such as slavery, persists in society.
In this quote, Robert Dale Owen argues that true peace cannot be achieved in a society that allows for profound injustices, such as slavery. He suggests that as long as slavery exists, the foundations of peace are fundamentally compromised, and any imagined future that includes this institution must be viewed skeptically. The quote serves as a call to action for social justice and highlights the moral obligation to eradicate oppression for a harmonious society.
In practice
During a speech about civil rights, one might include this quote to emphasize the need for justice in the fight for equality.
In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds - that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.
Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. Extract from 'Memories of childhood and youth.'
The United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam.
It was all a matter of control. And Choice. Nothing more, nothing less
I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life, even with such things as crawl upon earth.
As the different streams, having their sources in different places, all mingle their water in the sea; O Lord, so the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.
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