I believe that government is for the use of the people, and not the people for the use of the government. – Gerrit Smith
I prefer, in a word, the republican system, because it comes up more nearly to God’s system. – 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
I need say no more, to prove that slavery is entirely unlike the servitude in the patriarchal families. – 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
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
Truth and mercy require the exertion – never the suppression, of man’s noble rights and powers. – Gerrit Smith
Let the poor man count as his enemy, and his worst enemy, every invader of the right of free discussion. – Gerrit Smith
