“The patriotism of Pennsylvania’s religious teachers was pure. They threw in their whole weight of character and influence to promote a cause which made others equal with themselves; for the glorious privilege of seeing a people free. Her heroes bore the horrors of war, not to away the tyrant’s scepter, or enjoy a lordling’s wealth, but to found an asylum for the oppressed, and prepare a land of freedom for the tyrant’s slave. Her statesmen, while in the councils of the nation, devoted all their wisdom and talents to establish a government where every man should be free; the slave liberated from bondage and the colored African enjoy the rights of citizenship; all enjoying equal rights to speak, to act, to worship, peculiar privileges to none. Such were Pennsylvania’s sons at the beginning; and surely their sons and successors must have degenerated, lamentably degenerated, from the purity and patriotism of their fathers and predecessors, if crimes and cruelties, such as your memorialist complains of, go unheeded and unregarded. Honorable regard for the people of my native state forbids the thought.”
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