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

But I love honesty, and, therefore; do I make great account of facts.
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

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

I am a plain man, and I care and know comparatively little about rhetoric.
Gerrit Smith

I believe that government is for the use of the people, and not the people for the use of the government.
Gerrit Smith

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

I need say no more, to prove that slavery is entirely unlike the servitude in the patriarchal families.
Gerrit Smith


I prefer, in a word, the republican system, because it comes up more nearly to God's system.
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 welcomed the organization of the Anti-slavery Society.
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

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

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

Let the poor man count as his enemy, and his worst enemy, every invader of the right of free discussion.
Gerrit Smith

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

My rights all spring front an infinitely nobler source - from favor and grace of God.
Gerrit Smith

Our concern, however, is with slavery as it is, and not with any theory of it.
Gerrit Smith