Slavery is a kind of social leprosy: it has often been abolished by legislators and restored by education under various aspects. - Luís Gama

A law is a social monument, a page of history, a lesson in ethnography, a reason for state.

In front of them Washington, pensive like Archimedes, with the tip of the sacred sword, soaked in the blood of battles, inscribes the United States on the map of the Nations; and Franklin, the modern Teramenes, snatching a ray from the sun, with lucid stars, engraves in infinity the eternal legend of Liberty.

Historian Lígia Ferreira. Source: Obra de Luiz Gama revela a luta por um Brasil sem reis ou escravos.