If I am not safe in Alton, I shall not be safe anywhere.

As long as I am an American citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, and to publish whatever I please on any subject, being amenable to the laws of my country for the same.

I am sure I ought not to be, but I have great reason to tremble lest Satan and my own wicked heart get the better of me. It is no easy matter to fight such enemies as these, but with Christ strengthening me, I know I shall come off more than a conquerer.

If I know my own heart, I do now feel the necessity of resigning myself into the hands of my God, to mould and guide me at His will; tho I dare not say that I am, at present, willing to do it.

While I value the good opinion of my fellow citizens as highly as anyone, I may be permitted to say that I am governed by higher considerations than either the favor or the fear of man. I am impelled to the course I have taken because I fear God.

If I have been guilty of no violation of law, why am I hunted up and down continually like a partridge upon the mountains? Why am I threatened with the tar barrel? Why am I waylaid every day, and from night to night, and my life in jeopardy every hour?