Gerrit Smith Men Quotations

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.

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

There is one class of men, whom it especially behoves to be tenacious of the right of free discussion. I mean the poor.

True liberty acknowledges and defends the equal rights of all men, and all nations.

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.

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.

Truth and mercy require the exertion - never the suppression, of man's noble rights and powers.

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.

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.

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

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.