“I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.”
—THOMAS JEFFERSON
“Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory [the Negroes] are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.”
—THOMAS JEFFERSON
“Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government.”
—THOMAS JEFFERSON
“[Free blacks are] generally idle and depraved; appearing to retain the bad qualities of the slaves, with whom they continue to associate, without acquiring any of the good ones of the whites, from whom [they] continue separated by prejudices against their color, and other peculiarities.”
—JAMES MADISON
“(God) works most inscrutably to the understandings of men; the negro is torn from Africa, a barbarian, ignorant and idolatrous; he is restored civilized, enlightened, and a Christian.”
—JOHN TYLER
“I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races… I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.”
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN
“I have urged the colonization of the Negroes [in Africa], and I shall continue.”
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN
“I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the Negro into our social and political life as our equal.”
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN
“Within twenty years we can peacefully colonize the Negro… under conditions in which he can rise to the full measure of manhood. This he can never do here. We can never attain the ideal union our fathers dreamed, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable.”
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN
“Are the four millions of black persons who yesterday were held in slavery that had existed for generations sufficiently intelligent to cast a ballot?… To give the ballot indiscriminately to a new class wholly unprepared by previous habits and opportunities to perform the trust which it demands is to degrade it and finally to destroy its power.”
—ANDREW JOHNSON
“It is vain to deny that [black Americans] are an inferior race—very far inferior to the European variety. They have learned in slavery all that they know in civilization.”
—ANDREW JOHNSON
“If you liberate the Negro what will be the next step?… You can’t get rid of the Negro except by holding him in slavery.”
—ANDREW JOHNSON
“Hire your Negroes to work for you, and you will find they will do better labor for you than when they were slaves.”
—ANDREW JOHNSON
“Social equality is not a subject to be legislated upon, nor shall I ask that anything be done to advance the social status of the colored man.”
—ULYSSES S. GRANT
“I have a strong feeling of repugnance when I think of the Negro being made our political equal. And I would be glad if they could be colonized, sent to heaven, or got rid of in any decent way.”
—JAMES GARFIELD
“A perfectly stupid race can never rise to a very high plane; the negro, for instance, has been kept down as much by lack of intellectual development as by anything else.”
—THEODORE ROOSEVELT
“I have not been able to think out any solution to the terrible problem offered by the presence of the Negro on this continent… he is here and can neither be killed nor driven away.”
—THEODORE ROOSEVELT
“Now as to the Negroes! I entirely agree with you that as a race and in the mass [they] are altogether inferior to whites.”
—THEODORE ROOSEVELT, in a letter to novelist Owen Wister
“Your race is adapted to be a race of farmers, first, last and for all times.”
—WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, to a group of black college students
“Negroes are excited by a freedom they don’t understand and are not equipped to handle the demands and privileges of citizenship.”
—WOODROW WILSON
“If the colored people made a mistake in voting for me, they ought to correct it.”
—WOODROW WILSON
“Let the black man vote when he is fit to vote.”
—WARREN G. HARDING
“The black man should seek to be, and he should be encouraged to be, the best possible black man and not the best possible imitation of a white man.”
—WARREN G. HARDING
“[An] army of coons.”
—HARRY TRUMAN, referring to the White House waitstaff
“I went nigger chasing on Monday. Right through Central Africa: Vine St. There was no trace of that Nelson nigger.”
—HARRY TRUMAN, in a letter to his wife
“I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.”
—LYNDON B. JOHNSON
“So few of those who engage in espionage are Negroes.… As a matter of fact, very few of them become Communists.… But the Negroes, have you ever noticed? There are damn few Negro spies.”
—RICHARD NIXON
“African-Americans watch the same news at night that ordinary Americans do.”
—BILL CLINTON
“Do you have blacks too?”
—GEORGE W. BUSH, to the president of Brazil
“I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.”
—DONALD TRUMP