"We must continue to judge of slavery by what it is, and not by what you tell us it will, or may be."
"It, sometimes, suits the slaveholders to claim, that their slavery is an exclusively State concern; and that the North has, therefore, nothing to do with it."
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Source: Gerrit Smith (1856). “Speeches of Gerrit Smith in Congress”, p.22
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"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."
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