Date: 1789

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."

— Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832)

Date: 1789

"In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire [pain and pleasure]: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while"

— Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832)

Date: 1789

"Does not slavery itself depress the mind, and extinguish all its fire and every noble sentiment?"

— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)

Date: 1789

"Let any man of candour declare, whether the state of servitude and bondage, in which the poor are held both in France and England, does not merit the name of slavery, and justify the assertion of its universal existence at present, as well as the opinion of its having existed from the remotest a...

— Francklyn, Gilbert (fl. 1780-1792)

Date: May 13, 1789

"[T]he Slave Trade has enslaved their [Africans'] minds, blackened their character and sunk them so low in the scale of animal beings, that some think the very apes are of a higher class, and fancy the Ourang Outang has given them the go-by."

— Wilberforce, William (1759-1833)