I hear one thing of the people of Kansas which I am sorry to
hear. I hope it is not true. It is that they shall be willing to submit to this
ruffian government, provided the Federal government shall require them to do
so. But in no event, must they submit to it. They must resist it, even if in
doing so, they have to resist both Congress and President. And we must stand by
them in their resistance. Let us bring the case home to ourselves. Suppose the
legislators who meet in this building, were to enact a statute depriving us of
the freedom of speech, and making it a penitentiary offence to express an
opinion against the rightfulness of slaveholding—would we submit to the
statute? No, we would much rather march into this building, and hurl from their
seats the men guilty of such a perversion of their official powers. And we
would be no less prompt to do this, even though all the congresses and
presidents on earth were backing them.
SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith:
A Biography, p. 232
No comments:
Post a Comment