Gerrit Smith Quotes
"I need say no more, to prove that slavery is entirely unlike the servitude in the patriarchal families."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Slavery)
"I do not object to the construction of rail roads and canals."
- Gerrit Smith
"I do not subscribe to the doctrine that the people are the slaves and property of their government. I believe that government is for the use of the people, and not the people for the use of the government."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Government, People, Doctrine, Property)
"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
(Related: May, Slavery, Will)
"To no human charter am I indebted for my rights."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Rights)
"I prefer, in a word, the republican system, because it comes up more nearly to God's system."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: God, Republican, Word)
"I am a plain man, and I care and know comparatively little about rhetoric."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Care, Man, Rhetoric)
"God cannot approve of a system of servitude, in which the master is guilty of assuming absolute power - of assuming God's place and relation towards his fellow-men."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Power, God)
"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
(Related: America, Rights, Turkey)
"But I love honesty, and, therefore; do I make great account of facts."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Love, Honesty, Facts)
"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
(Related: Man, May, Nothing)
"As this is the first time I have had the floor, it may be well for me now to confess, that I am in the habit of freely imputing errors to my fellow-men."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Time, Habit, Errors, First, May, Now)
"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
(Related: Home, Time, Thoughts, Man, Slavery)
"Truth and mercy require the exertion - never the suppression, of man's noble rights and powers."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Truth, Rights, Man, Mercy)
"To say, that Capt. Ingraham violated the rights of Turkey, is nonsense."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Rights, Nonsense, Turkey)
"There is room in our ranks for the old and decrepit, as well as the young and vigorous."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Old)
"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
(Related: Men, Class, Poor, Right)
"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
(Related: Men, War, Peace, Effect)
"I trust, that your readers will not construe my words to mean, that I would not have gone to a 3 o'clock in the morning session, for the sake of defeating the Nebraska bill."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Trust, Will, Words)
"I believe that government is for the use of the people, and not the people for the use of the government."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Government, People)
"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
(Related: Success, Authority, Cause, Influence)
"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
(Related: God, Marriage, Forbidden, Reading, Respect, Word)
"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
(Related: Concern, Nothing, Slavery, State)
"Let the poor man count as his enemy, and his worst enemy, every invader of the right of free discussion."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Enemy, Man, Poor, Right)
"Let us tell our legislators in advance, that this is a right, restraints on which, we will not, cannot bear; and that every attempt to restrain it is a palpable wrong on God and man."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: God, Legislators, Man, Right, Will, Wrong)
"The poor North has much to do with slavery. It staggers under its load and smarts under its lash."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Poor, Slavery)
"Our concern, however, is with slavery as it is, and not with any theory of it."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Concern, Slavery, Theory)
"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
(Related: Rights, Man)
"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
(Related: Rights, Respect, State)
"My rights all spring front an infinitely nobler source - from favor and grace of God."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: God, Rights, Grace, Spring)
"I welcomed the organization of the Anti-slavery Society."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Society)