Gerrit Smith

“Poverty is the great parent of crime.”

“Land monopoly is the most oppressive of all monopolies.”

“The sin of slavery is the sin of theft—the theft of a man from himself.”

“The right of suffrage is the guardian of all other rights.”

“The politician, who would make a creed for others, is himself a creedless dog.”

“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.”

“I would that every one of my poor enslaved brethren and sisters were this day free.”

“To be a voter in this land is to be a slaveholder.”

“The object of a government is to protect men in their rights.”

“So long as I am a man, I must be a philanthropist.”

“I love my country, but I love my kind more.”

“There is a law of God, which is the law of reason. I appeal to that law.”

“The ballot-box is the surest weapon of the slave.”