The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Political — John Shaqi
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—PoliticalIngersoll, Robert Green
History
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Political
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
I now want to show you how far they went in this direction. A man by the
name of Sutton, who lived on Long Island, had been going around giving
his constitutional opinions upon the war. They had him arrested, and
went on to resolve that he should be taken from Philadelphia, pay the
cost of transportation himself, be put in jail there, and while in jail
should board himself. Wouldn't a Democrat have had a hard scramble for
victuals if we had carried out that idea? Just see what outrageous and
terrible things the fathers did. And why did they do it? Because they
saw that in order to establish the liberties of America it was necessary
they should take the Tory by the throat just as it was necessary for us
to take rebels by the throat during the late war.
They had paper money in those days--shin-plasters--and some of the
Democrats of those times had legal doubts about this paper currency. One
of these Democrats, Thomas Harriott, was called before a Committee of
Safety of New York, and there convicted of having refused to receive in
payment the Continental bills. The committee of New York conceiving that
he was a dangerous person, informed the Provincial Congress of the facts
in the case, and inquired whether Congress thought he ought to go at
large. Upon receipt of this information by Congress an order for the
imprisonment of the offender was passed, as follows:
_Resolved_, That the General Committee of the city of New York be
requested and authorized, and are hereby requested and authorized to
direct that Thomas Harriott be committed to close jail in this city,
there to remain until further orders of this Congress.--Amer. Archives,
4th series, vol. 6, P. i, 344.
And yet all that he had done was to refuse to take Continental money.
He had simply given his opinion on the legal tender law, just as the
Democrats of Indiana did in regard to greenbacks, and as a few circuit
judges decided when they declared the Legal Tender Act unconstitutional.
It would have been perfectly proper and right that they, every man of
them, should be, like Thomas Harriott, "committed to close jail, there
to remain until further orders."
Did our forefathers ever interfere with religion? Yes, they did with
a preacher by the name of Daniels, because he would not pray for the
American cause. He thought he could coax the Lord to beat us. They said
to him, "You pray on our side, sir." He would not do it, and so they put
him in jail and gave him work enough to pray himself out, and it took
him some time to do it. They interfered with a _lack_ of religion. They
believed that a Tory or traitor in the pulpit was no better than anybody
else. That is the way I have sometimes felt during the war. I have
thought that I would like to see some of those white cravatted gentlemen
"snaked" right out of the pulpits where they had dared to utter their
treason, and set to playing checkers through a grated window.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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