Abraham Maslow said: "The history of mankind is the history of people selling themselves short."

So why has mankind historically settled for misery and self-destruction instead of living with peace, joy, and love?

"No other factor in history, not even religion, has produced so many wars as has the clash of national egotisms sanctified by the name of patriotism." --Preserved Smith

"By his escape from bondage, he has shown that true manhood, which must grapple to him every honest heart. He may be ignorant, and rude, as he is poor, but he is one of a true nobility. The Fugitive Slaves of the United States are among the heroes of our age." U.S. Senator Charles Sumner, 1850

"A slave, says the Louisana code, 'is in the power of the master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, not acquire anything, but which must belong to his master.'" --William E. Channing, 1836

"They cover up the hideousness of slavery. They hide its dark features, and thus put the moral sense of the community asleep, and leave the slave comparatively unpitied, to drink still oppression's bitter cup." --Amos A. Phelps (1834)