The ministers of an insane and irresponsible Government and its little one the North-West Council made up their mind to answer my petitions by surrou… - Louis Riel

The agitation in the North-West Territories would have been constitutional and would certainly be constitutional to-day, if, in my opinion, we had not been attacked.

I think the verdict that has been given against me is a proof that I am more than ordinary myself, but that the circumstances and the help that is given is more than ordinary, are more than ordinary, and although I consider myself only as others, yet by the will of God, by his Providence, by the circumstances which have surrounded me for fifteen years, I think that I have been called to do something which at least in the North-West nobody has done yet, and in some way I think that to a certain number of people the verdict against me to day is a proof that maybe I am a prophet, maybe Riel is a prophet. He suffers for it.

We may be a small community and a Half-breed community at that — but we are men, free and spirited men, and we will not allow even the Dominion of Canada to trample on our rights.