“A weapon that comes down as still
As snowflakes fall upon the sod;
But executes a freeman's will,
As lightning does the will of God;
And from its force nor doors nor locks
Can shield you,—'t is the ballot-box.”

— John Pierpont

A Word from a Petitioner, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A weapon that comes down as still As snowflakes fall upon the sod; But executes a freeman's will, As lightning does …" by John Pierpont?

John Pierpont 2

American writer 1785–1866

Related quotes

“[T]he King is God's immediate lieutenant upon earth; and therefore one and the same action is God's by ordinance, and the King's by execution. And the power which resides in the King is not any assuming to himself, nor any gift from the people, but God's power, as well in, as over, him.”

William Laud (1573–1645) Archbishop of Canterbury

Source: Sermon at Whitehall (19 June 1625), quoted in The Works of the Most Reverend Father in God, William Laud, sometime Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Volume I: Sermons (1847), p. 94

“A man's rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box. Let no man be kept from the ballot box because of his color. Let no woman be kept from the ballot box because of her sex.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech http://books.google.ca/books?id=zFclDyk2LTEC&pg=PA57#v=onepage&q&f=false (15 November 1867).
1860s

“Our "pathway" is straight to the ballot box, with no variableness nor shadow of turning…We demand in the Reconstruction suffrage for all the citizens of the Republic. I would not talk of Negroes or women, but of citizens.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1868-01-13).

“Language can never "pin down" slavery, genocide, war. Nor should it yearn for the arrogance to be able to do so. Its force, its felicity is in its reach toward the ineffable.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Nobel Prize Lecture (1993)
Context: Language can never "pin down" slavery, genocide, war. Nor should it yearn for the arrogance to be able to do so. Its force, its felicity is in its reach toward the ineffable. Be it grand or slender, burrowing, blasting, or refusing to sanctify; whether it laughs out loud or is a cry without an alphabet, the choice word, the chosen silence, unmolested language surges toward knowledge, not its destruction. But who does not know of literature banned because it is interrogative; discredited because it is critical; erased because alternate? And how many are outraged by the thought of a self-ravaged tongue?

“Neither the chains of dictatorship nor the fetters of oppression can keep down the forces of freedom for long.”

Angela Merkel (1954) Chancellor of Germany

Remarks by President Obama and Chancellor Merkel in an Exchange of Toasts on June 07, 2011. http://www.newsroomamerica.com/story/137358/remarks_by_president_obama_and_chancellor_merkel_in_an_exchange_of_toasts.html
Context: We see that living in freedom and defending freedom are two sides of one and the same coin, for the precious gift of freedom doesn’t come naturally, but has to be fought for, nurtured, and defended time and time again. Sometimes this may seem like an endless fight against windmills. But you see, my personal experience is a quite different one. What we dare not dream of today may well become reality tomorrow. Neither the chains of dictatorship nor the fetters of oppression can keep down the forces of freedom for long.