43 Quotes by 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.

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.

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

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

To no human charter am I indebted for my rights.

True, permanent peace can never be restored, until slavery, the occasion of the war, has ceased.

We must continue to judge of slavery by what it is, and not by what you tell us it will, or may be.

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.

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.