Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, Act II. Sc. 1.
Rendez-les libres,—et plus près que vous de la nature, ils vaudront beaucoup mieux que vous.—Condorcet, Note 109 aux Pensées de Pascal.
When a leak is to be stopped, or a fire extinguished, do not all hands coöperate without distinction of sect or party? Or if I am fallen into a ditch, shall I not suffer a man to help me out, until I have first examined his creed?—Bishop Berkeley, A Word to the Wise, or an Exhortation to the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland: Works (London, 1837), p. 360.
May Congress not say that every black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this last war?… Have they not power to provide for the general defence and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of Slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free? And will they not be warranted by that power? This is no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point.—Patrick Henry. Debates in the Virginia Convention on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Elliot’s Debates, Vol. III. p. 590.
The natural strength of the country, in point of numbers, appears to me to consist much more in the blacks than in the whites. Could they be incorporated and employed for its defence, it would afford you double security. That they would make good soldiers I have not the least doubt.—Major-General Nathanael Greene, Letter to Governor Rutledge: Johnson’s Life of Greene, Vol. II. p. 274.