Excerpt from Speeches and Letters of Gerrit Smith on the Rebellion

Oh! Had'we but been uncorrupted by slavery, how quickly would we have put down the Rebellion, if indeed there could in that case, have been a Rebellion to put down We should then have wasted no time, and produced no division amongst ourselves, by talking about the Union, the Constitution, or even the Country. Our one purpose then would have been to put down the rebels - and to put them down irrespectively of the hearing it might have on whatever interests. Naked plunderers and murder ers were these entirely unwronged rebels: and they Should have been put down with as total a disregard of consequences, as would characterize the Single purpose of a stern father in putting down his revolted child. Who doubts that with such a disregard they had been put down instantly Suppose that scoundrels in Utica your adopted and my native home - had, with arms in their hands, and using them too, seized her funds, her fire-engines, and her other corporate property, and that yen-had, at the time, been her Mayor; would you have sent to the Common Council a Message of the tone and character of that you have just sent to the Legis lature Would you have sought in it to divide her citizens upon a multiplicity of issues respecting the future condition of her Fire Department, her funds and other interests? Oh no! Oh no You could have made no Democratic and no other gain by such an insane policy. You would, beyond a doubt, have sought to unite them in the one purpose and one endeavor to subdue and punish the miscreants ay, to subdue and punish them, come what might of Fire Department, Funds, or even Utica herself. I am wrong-they would already have been thus united. Such union would have been the necessary result of the outrage. Only bad counsels and partisan influences could have disunited them. The people of the North were united when they heard of the bombard ing of Sumter. But alas our good and patriotic President tem porized! The spirit, which should have been taken at the flood, was allowed time to subside. Hundreds of thousands of lives, and directly and indirectly thousands of millions of dollars have already been the penalty of this mistake' and only too reasonable is the fear that the loss of the nation will be needed to éomplete the penalty. How surely and how quickly would he at that time but for the timidity and hesitancy, which grew out of his pro Slavery education, have saved our wealth and toil from this Oppres sive taxation, our tens of thousands of bereaved families from their sorrows, and our country from the appalling prospect of her ruin! The Rebellion should have been shot dead at once. Whoever denies it proves therein that he is insensible of its infernal charac ter, and knows not how to deal with such a crime. Or rather, whoever denies it makes room thereby for the suspicion that he sympathizes with the Rebellion and is a participant in the crime.

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