I have often thought that the industrious efforts to
persuade the people that I have been untrue to freedom in Kansas, present the
most remarkable instances of the success of a lie against the truth. Having
done what I could for her in Congress, I came home to do much more for her. My
use of men and money to keep slavery out of that territory has been limited
only by my ability.
The true history of Kansas is yet to be written. The
impression that she has been preserved from the grasp of slavery by the skill
of party leaders and by speeches in Congress, is as false as it is common. She
has been preserved from it by her own brave spirits and strong arms. To no man
living is so much praise due for beating back the tide of border ruffianism and
slavery as to my old and dear friend
John Brown of Osowatomie. Though he has had at no time under his command more
than one hundred and fifty fighting men, yet by his unsurpassed skill and
courage he has accomplished wonders for the cause of freedom. Small as have
been the armed forces, which have saved Kansas, their maintenance has
nevertheless taxed some persons heavily. My eye at this moment is on one
merchant in Boston, who has contributed several thousand dollars to this
object. What, compared with him, has gaseous oratory, in or out of Congress,
done for Kansas?
No man out of Kansas has done so much as Eli Thayer to save
her; and no man in Kansas as John Brown — Old John Brown, the fighter. Kansas
owes her salvation to no party — to no speeches and no votes either in Congress
or elsewhere. She owes it to her ample preparations to repel by physical force
the aggressions of slavery. She believed slavery to be a pirate — the
superlative pirate; and she prepared herself to deal with it in just that
common sense way that every persistent pirate is to be dealt with.
SOURCE: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A
Biography, p. 233-4
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