The Golden Speech (1601)
“I am against an adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment: if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.”
Davenport's response to a call for adjourning the Connecticut State Council because of fears that the deep darkness might be a sign that the Last Judgment was approaching, as quoted by Timothy Dwight, Connecticut Historical Collections 2d ed (1836) compiled by John Warner Barber, p. 403.
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Abraham Davenport 4
American politician 1715–1789Related quotes
“I feel no wrath against the people, I am only doing my duty.”
Speech in the House of Commons in the aftermath of the Peterloo massacre, introducing a Bill to outlaw such radical meetings, prevent the training of dissidents, and seize arms (3 December 1819).
Notes on Religion (October 1776), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 2 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-02_Bk.pdf, p. 266
1770s
Context: Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. I may grow rich by art I am compelled to follow, I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment, but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve & abhor.
As quoted by John Greenleaf Whittier in his poem "Abraham Davenport" first published in The Atlantic Monthly (May 1866); later published in The Tent on the Beach, and Other Poems (1867).
Context: This well may be The Day of Judgment which the world awaits; But be it so or not, I only know my present duty, and my Lord’s command to occupy till He come. So at the post where He hath set me in His providence, I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, no faithless servant frightened from my task, but ready when the Lord of the harvest calls; and therefore, with all reverence, I would say, let God do His work, we will see to ours. Bring in the candles.
Proceedings against the Dean of St. Asaph (1783), 21 How. St. Tr. 875.
Abdication Speech, December 11, 1936, via radio to a worldwide audience. http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/edward.htm
Notes on Religion (October 1776), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 2 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-02_Bk.pdf, p. 266
1770s
Last statement by Heß to the International Military Tribunal in Nüremberg (31 August 1946)