Gerrit Smith quotes

I do not object to the construction of rail roads and canals. (Gerrit Smith)
I need say no more, to prove that slavery is entirely unlike the servitude in the patriarchal families.
Gerrit Smith
Our concern, however, is with slavery as it is, and not with any theory of it.
Gerrit Smith
Truth and mercy require the exertion - never the suppression, of man's noble rights and powers.
Gerrit Smith
We must continue to judge of slavery by what it is, and not by what you tell us it will, or may be.
Gerrit Smith
It, sometimes, suits the slaveholders to claim, that their slavery is an exclusively State concern; and that the North has, therefore, nothing to do with it.
Gerrit Smith
True, permanent peace can never be restored, until slavery, the occasion of the war, has ceased.
Gerrit Smith
To no human charter am I indebted for my rights.
Gerrit Smith
But I love honesty, and, therefore; do I make great account of facts.
Gerrit Smith
I am a plain man, and I care and know comparatively little about rhetoric.
Gerrit Smith
There is room in our ranks for the old and decrepit, as well as the young and vigorous. (Gerrit Smith)
I welcomed the organization of the Anti-slavery Society.
Gerrit Smith
Our political and constitutional rights, so called, are but the natural and inherent rights of man, asserted, carried out, and secured by modes of human contrivance.
Gerrit Smith
To say, that Capt. Ingraham violated the rights of Turkey, is nonsense.
Gerrit Smith
When a good man lends himself to the advocacy of slavery, he must, at least for a time, feel himself to be any where but at home, amongst his new thoughts, doctrines, and modes of reasoning.
Gerrit Smith
My rights all spring front an infinitely nobler source - from favor and grace of God.
Gerrit Smith
But as well may you, when urging a man up-hill with a heavy load upon his back, and with your lash also upon his back, tell him, that be has nothing to do either with the load or the lash.
Gerrit Smith
I prefer, in a word, the republican system, because it comes up more nearly to God's system.
Gerrit Smith
The only ground on which a neutral State can claim respect at the hands of belligerents is, that, so far as she is concerned, their rights are protected.
Gerrit Smith
The Southern slave would obey God in respect to marriage, and also to the reading and studying of His word. But this, as we have seen, is forbidden him.
Gerrit Smith
It is not to be disguised, that a war has broken out between the North and the South. - Political and commercial men are industriously striving to restore peace: but the peace, which they would effect, is superficial, false, and temporary. (Gerrit Smith)
But, although America cannot be justly charged with violating the rights of Turkey, Turkey nevertheless can be justly charged with violating the rights of America.
Gerrit Smith
There is one class of men, whom it especially behoves to be tenacious of the right of free discussion. I mean the poor.
Gerrit Smith
It is manifestly vital to the success of the anti-slavery cause, that the authority and influence of proslavery, especially of slaveholding, ministers should be destroyed.
Gerrit Smith
Let the poor man count as his enemy, and his worst enemy, every invader of the right of free discussion.
Gerrit Smith