"Let the poor man count as his enemy, and his worst enemy, every invader of the right of free discussion"
About this Quote
Freedom of speech usually gets sold as a philosopher's luxury; Gerrit Smith flips it into a survival instinct. The line is a recruiting poster aimed at the people most likely to be told, politely or violently, to keep quiet. By naming the "poor man" as the stake-holder, Smith insists that free discussion isn't a genteel parlor right but the primary tool the powerless have to bargain with power at all. If you can't speak, organize, petition, publish, or argue in public, every other right becomes decorative.
The phrasing is deliberately militant: "count as his enemy" and then the escalation to "his worst enemy". Smith is trying to rewire class instincts away from scapegoating sideways (immigrants, other workers, the conveniently visible) and toward the systems and actors that restrict debate. The "invader" is telling: it treats censorship not as a policy dispute but as a trespass, an act of occupation. That moral framing matters because it turns passivity into betrayal; tolerating gag rules becomes a kind of self-harm for the poor.
Context sharpens the stakes. Smith was a radical abolitionist politician in an era when antislavery speech was routinely suppressed: mob attacks on speakers, "gag rules" in Congress to block abolition petitions, postal censorship of abolitionist materials. He'd watched how authorities could maintain slavery and other hierarchies by strangling the argument before it reached a ballot box or a courtroom. The subtext is blunt: if the powerful can control what can be said, they won't need to control what can be voted on.
The phrasing is deliberately militant: "count as his enemy" and then the escalation to "his worst enemy". Smith is trying to rewire class instincts away from scapegoating sideways (immigrants, other workers, the conveniently visible) and toward the systems and actors that restrict debate. The "invader" is telling: it treats censorship not as a policy dispute but as a trespass, an act of occupation. That moral framing matters because it turns passivity into betrayal; tolerating gag rules becomes a kind of self-harm for the poor.
Context sharpens the stakes. Smith was a radical abolitionist politician in an era when antislavery speech was routinely suppressed: mob attacks on speakers, "gag rules" in Congress to block abolition petitions, postal censorship of abolitionist materials. He'd watched how authorities could maintain slavery and other hierarchies by strangling the argument before it reached a ballot box or a courtroom. The subtext is blunt: if the powerful can control what can be said, they won't need to control what can be voted on.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
|---|
More Quotes by Gerrit
Add to List
