- “A plank in Smith’s political platform caught Quincy’s attention: “Smith recognized the curse and iniquity of slavery, though he opposed the methods of the Abolitionists.” He proposed to pay for the slaves with proceeds from the sale of public lands, thus respecting the rights of property while freeing all bondsmen. Quincy noted that eleven years later Ralph Waldo Emerson, “who has mixed so much practical shrewdness with his lofty philosophy,” had made the same proposal. Considering “the terrible cost of the fratricidal war,” Smith and Emerson’s proposal, in Quincy’s judgment, was “worthy of a Christian statesman.” Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. (Bushman, Richard Lyman) Kindle Location 335-340.
- “Stepen Biko in South Africa, during apartheid, wrote, “The greatest tool in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”