Gerrit Smith to Frederick Douglass, August 28, 1854
Peterboro, [N.Y.] 28 Aug[ust] 1854.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS :
My DEAR FRIEND :—
I see, in your last paper, your letter to myself. I shall take great pleasure
in answering your questions, since you are of the number of those whose
wishes I am especially glad to gratify.
1st. As you are aware, I went to Congress with very little hope of the
peaceful termination of American slavery. I have returned with less. I
still see no evidence, that the North will act effectually for such termina-
tion—for I still see no evidence, that it will act honestly for it. It is true,
that I learn of anti-Nebraska indignation meetings,1Stephen A. Douglas introduced his legislation to organize the territories of Kansas and Nebraska in January 1854, and it passed after considerable amending on 30 May 1854. Public protests against the measure’s voiding of the Missouri Compromise’s provisions restricting slavery within the old Louisiana Purchase began almost immediately in the North. The anti-Nebraska political coalitions produced as a result eventually merged into the Republican party. Louis Filler, The Crusade against Slavery, 1830-1860 (London, 1960), 229-30; Ray, Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 16, 182-87. all over the North.
But this does not greatly encourage me. It is repentance, not indignation,
which the North needs to feel, and to manifest. It becomes not the North
to be angry with the South about the Nebraska bill, or about any other
pro-slavery thing.—Her duty is to confess her shame and sorrow, that
her political, ecclesiastical, and commercial influence has gone to uphold
slavery, and to deceive the but-too-willing-to-be deceived South into the
belief, that slavery is right, or, at least, excusable. Had there been such
confession, there would have been no Nebraska bill to get angry about, or
to make party capital of. Had there been such confession, the South would
have had no heart to extend slavery. All her concern would have been to
abolish it.
Now, for the North to be honest in the matter of slavery, is to treat it as
they would any other great crime; and, therefore, to deny, that there can be
a law for it. It is, in a word, to do unto others, in that matter, as they would
have others do unto them, in it. Do the people of the North believe, that
they would honor and obey slavery, as law, should it ever lay claim to their
own necks? If they do not, then they are dishonest, in acknowledging it to
be law, when others are its victims.
Is it said, that the honesty, which I here commend, would exasperate
the South? I answer, that it would go far to conquer the South. Let the
North say: “We have sinned against our enslaved brother, in acknowledg-
ing, that the immeasurable crime against him is capable of the obligations
and sacredness of law. We will do so no more—whatever Constitutions
and Statutes may require of us, and however great the losses we may suf-
fer in our trade, and in our political and religious party connexions.” Let
the North speak such words of penitence and principle—and the South
will listen. When the Northern heart begins to melt, the Southern heart,
also, will begin to melt.
It is demonstrations of our honesty, not of our cunning, which are
needed to influence and convert the South. The tricks,2Both article IV, section 2, clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, also known as the Fugitive Slave Clause, and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 provided for the legal return of slaves who had escaped to freedom. In 1842, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in that state officials were not required to assist in the return of fugitive slaves, essentially rendering efforts to recover slaves impossible. Connecticut passed a law that forbade judges to take cognizance of such cases; Indiana, New York, and Vermont had laws that provided for trial by jury in cases involving fugitive slaves; and Pennsylvania and Ohio passed laws to prevent kidnapping. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 attempted to circumvent all such legal obstructions by bringing federal authority to bear on the rendition of runaway slaves, but instead caused several Northern states to enact a new series of “personal liberty laws” in the 1850s to protect accused runaway slaves. John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., (New York, 1994), 192; Campbell, , 10; , 1:278-81. which Northern
Legislatures have resorted to, or threatened to resort to, for the purpose
of evading, or nullifying, the fugitive servant clause of the Constitution
and the fugitive servant statutes of Congress, can have no tendency to
inspire the South either with the fear of us, or the love of us. I need not
say it for the ten thousandth time—that my eyes detect no slavery in the
Constitution, and that I utterly deny, that the attempt to smuggle slavery
into it was, at all, successful. But the great mass of the Northern people
widely disagree with me, at this point; and, hence, what is required of
them by the spirit of truth and the God of truth is, not to practice indirec-
tion and fraud, but frankly to acknowledge, that the South has their bond,
and that so wicked is the bond, that conscience constrains them to refuse,
at whatever hazard, to fulfil it.
I referred to the fact, that my hope of the bloodless termination of
American slavery is less now than it was, when I went to Congress. I
confess, that I did hope to find some Southern men there, who are willing
to aid in bringing about such a termination. But I found none of them,
who are willing to lift so much, as a finger, to this end. A few Southern
members of Congress seek, by means of nonsensical and wicked specu-
lations on the nature of the African and on the Divine purposes, to per-
suade themselves, that slavery is right in itself. As a matter of course, such
contend, that slavery should endure forever. But even with the mass of
them, the case is very little more hopeful.—It is true, that they admit, that
slavery is, in itself, an evil. But they will do nothing to put an end to it.
They had rather amuse themselves with the notion, that Colonization will
drain it off, or with some other equally great absurdity—if, indeed, there
is, or can be, any other as great. The more, however, that I know of this
class of Southern men, the more satisfied I am, that even those of them,
who are the most deeply convinced of the wrongfulness of slavery, regard
the evil as too formidable for their little courage to grapple with. They are
cowed in the presence of its magnitude: and they prefer to let it roll on to
an indefinite future, and to a posterity, which, they hope, will have more
advantages than now exist, for happily disposing of it.
2nd. You ask, if the anti-slavery cause has any thing to hope for from
the present Congress. It has not. What can Liberty hope from a Congress,
that commits so heinous a crime against her, as to pass the Nebraska bill?
What from a House of Representatives,3Smith alludes to the failure of antislavery congressmen to get the House of Representatives to consider resolutions submitted from several Northern states during the Thirty-third Congress for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, as well as defeat of the Kansas-Nebraska legislation. Charles Sumner headed similar efforts in the U.S. Senate. Derek R. Everett, “Frontiers Within: State Boundaries and Borderlands in the American West” (Ph.D. diss., University of Arkansas, 2008), 65-66. not fifty members of which dared
to say, that they were in favor of repealing the fugitive slave Act?
3d. You wish my opinions of the influence of the anti-slavery mem-
bers of Congress.—I had rather give you my opinions of the members;
and, then, you can judge for yourself what must be the character and ex-
tent of the influence, which they exert. I take it for granted, that you mean
by anti-slavery members those only, who are known as abolitionists, and
who accept the reproach of being abolitionists.
Chase4Salmon P. Chase. is wise, learned, upright. He is an able lawyer and an able
statesman. His range of thought and information is wide; and, even with-
out special preparation, he can speak well on the subjects, that come be-
fore him.
Sumner5Charles Sumner. is not so ready and versatile, as Chase. But put into his hands
a subject, which interests his heart—Peace or Freedom, for instance—and
give him time to elaborate it—and where is the man, who can speak or
write better? Sumner is as guileless and ingenuous as a child: and, hence
my astonishment at the base and ferocious feeling manifested toward him,
at one period of the Session. Chase and Sumner are gentlemen—christian
gentlemen. Great is my love of them: and were I to add, “passing the love
of women,”62 Sam. 1:26. I should not be guilty of great extravagance.
Gillette7Francis Gillette (1807-79) was born in Connecticut and graduated from Yale College in 1829. He served as a Whig member in the Connecticut house of representatives in 1832, 1836, and 1838, where he aligned himself with the legislature’s antislavery contingent and supported an amendment in 1838 to remove the word “white” from the Connecticut state constitution. Gillette’s home in Hartford, Connecticut, was used as a station on the Underground Railroad. He ran unsuccessfully as the Liberty party’s candidate for governor of Connecticut in 1841. From 1841 to 1853, Gillette made repeated runs for the governor’s office as a candidate of the Liberty party and then the Free Soil party. In 1854, Gillette was elected as a Free Soil party candidate to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate,
where he served until the end of 1855; he did not run for reelection. During his brief stay in Congress, Gillette voted against the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Gillette went on to help found the Republican party in Connecticut, worked in the temperance movement, and was active in educational reform, serving as chairman of the state board of education from 1849 to 1865. Darcy G. Richardson, (Lincoln, Neb., 2004), 399; (online). has been in the Senate but a short time:—long enough, how-
ever, to give evidence, that he has a sound head and a sound heart. He
loves the anti slavery cause, as well as Chase and Sumner; and surpasses
them in zeal for the no less precious cause of temperance.
To come to the abolitionists in the House. All know “Old Giddings.”8Joshua Reed Giddings (1795-1864), a radical abolitionist and congressman from Ohio, was first elected to the House of Representatives as a Whig in 1838. He vigorously opposed the gag rule, the annexation of Texas, and the Mexican War. In 1842, Giddings was sanctioned by the House for his actions during negotiations with Great Britain over the Creole affair. While negotiations were underway, he introduced resolutions supporting the right of slaves aboard the British ship to mutiny. In 1848, Giddings left the Whig party to join the Free Soilers and then allied himself with the Republicans after the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In late October 1852, Giddings went to New York, where he joined Douglass in the campaign to elect Smith to Congress. , 29 October 1852; Stewart, ; , 4:478; (online).
An able man is he. His rough, strong, common sense is worth infinitely
more than the refinement and polish of which so many light-minded men
are vain. He is ready and powerful in debate. An honest and fearless man,
too, is he. I shall never forget the many proofs which I witnessed of his un-
flinching devotion to the right and the true. If his severity upon slavehold-
ers is, sometimes, excessive, nevertheless it is not for them to complain of
it. He learned it of them. Or, to say the least, it is a very natural retaliation
for the wrongs and outrages, which, for a dozen or fifteen years, they have
been industriously heaping upon him. Greatly do I rejoice to see that the
friends of freedom have taken him up for another election to Congress.
They honor themselves in honoring him. There should not be one vote
against him.
I must not fail to advert, in this connexion, to my great obligations9Giddings befriended Smith after his election, frequently dining with him and working with him to oppose the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Harlow, , 317, 329.
to Mr. Giddings for the assistance, which he so kindly and generously af-
forded me, in my ignorance of the rules of the House.
We turn, next, to Edward Wade of Ohio. A stranger, looking over the
House, would make no account of that black little fellow, who sits, in one
corner of it. But let him read Edward Wade’s remarkably strong speech on
the Nebraska bill,10During House debate on the Kansas-Nebraska Act on 3 May 1854, Edward Wade of Ohio announced his opposition to the legislation. Specifically, Wade opposed the extension of suffrage only to whites and “the exclusion of all foreigners from its bounty” in the government of those territories. , 19 May 1854.
or hear one of his pithy five minutes speeches, and he
will find that he has another occasion for applying the Savior’s injunction:
"Judge not according to the appearance.”11 John 7:24. Wade is an eminently consci-
entious and religious man. I am glad to see, that he, too, is nominated for
another election to Congress. He should be, as often as he is willing to
take the nomination.
Colonel DeWitt12Alexander De Witt (1798-1879) was a congressman from Oxford, Massachusetts. Of limited education, De Witt began working at fifteen in the manufacturing of cotton thread. He also held numerous positions, primarily directorships, in the railroad, banking, and insurance industries. DeWitt’s public service began in the state legislature (1830-36), followed by four terms in the state senate (1842-53), and two terms in Congress (1853-57). He is best known for his participation in the Free Soil party. It is unknown how he came to be called “colonel.” Lowell (Mass.) , 15 January 1879; Thomas William Herringshaw, , 5 vols. (Chicago, 1909-14), 2:263; (online).
of Massachusetts was sick much of the Session. All,
who were so fortunate, as to become acquainted with him, were impressed
with his good sense, generous disposition, and agreeable manners.
As Davis13Thomas Davis. of Rhode Island was chosen by the Democratic party, that
party may not thank me for calling him an abolitionist—Nevertheless,
he is one. He has a mother’s heart for every human being, and that makes
him an abolitionist. I sat next to him, during the whole Session: and I es-
teemed it no small privilege to sit, for so long a time, by the side of one,
who is so sincere, so affectionate, so philanthropic. Davis is a plain, not
forcible, speaker. The city of Providence owes him much for his effective
speeches in behalf of a large, (perhaps, too large) appropriation for build-
ing her custom-house.
I have, now, spoken of all the abolitionists in Congress, save myself:
and, since, in the judgment of many, I have fallen from abolition grace, I
had better not speak of myself. Do not exult over my apostacy. Even you,
though a literally “died in the wool"14Perhaps Smith miswrote the idiom “dyed in the wool.” The phrase, originating from a description of how raw wool retains dye, is often used to express a person’s intransigence. Brewer, , 427-28.abolitionist, should rather be ad-
monished by my apostacy to take heed lest you yourself fall.
4th. In answer to your fourth question, I would say, that all the mem-
bers of Congress, who belong to the Whig or Democratic party, are neces-
sarily “supporters of slavery.” Every national party in this country must
be pro-slavery. The South will come into no party, and abide in no party,
that is anti-slavery I cheerfully admit, that there is many a Whig, and
that there is many a Democrat, earnestly anti-slavery. Nevertheless, their
individual against slavery is as nothing compared with their
party influence it. As well may a man, with a mill-stone tied to his
neck,15Possibly a paraphrase of Matt. 18:6, Mark 9:42, or Luke 17:2. try to save his drowning fellows, as a Whig or a Democrat try, un-
der his heavy pro-slavery load, to promote the anti-slavery cause. His anti-
slavery endeavors, however sincere, are all frustrated by his pro-slavery
party connexion: and that connexion must be dissolved ere he can give
effect to those endeavors.—Our national parties, ecclesiastical, as well
as political, once abolished and the peaceful death of slavery would be
a speedy event.—But the great reason, why we are denied the prospect
of this happy event, is that the members of these parties love them too
well, and are too far under their infatuating influence, to consent to their
abolition.
5th. I proceed to answer your last inquiry. There are in the House a
number of gentlemen of remarkable capacity and training for the transac-
tion of business. Conspicuously among them are Haven16Solomon George Haven (1810-61) was a Whig congressman from western New York who served three terms. Haven received a common education and was privately tutored in the classics. While he was working on a medical degree, his interests changed, and he entered into the study of law under the direction of Governor John Young while supporting himself by teaching school. Haven became a partner in the firm of Fillmore, Hall, and Haven. His public service included terms as commissioner of deeds, district attorney, and mayor of Buffalo before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. , 3:118; (online). of New York,
and Orr17James Lawrence Orr (1822-1873) was a Democratic congressman from South Carolina. He held the position of Speaker of the House during the Thirty-fifth Congress (1857-59). Educated at the University of Virginia, Orr established and ran the Anderson (S.C.) Gazette for two years before entering the practice of law. He served two terms as a state representative before being elected to Congress in 1848. Orr continued with public service after leaving Congress in 1860, serving as a Confederate state senator, governor of South Carolina, and a circuit court judge. Ulysses S. Grant appointed him U.S. minister to Russia, where he served until his death. Gerrit Smith’s observations regarding Orr’s business acumen may be attributed to his well-articulated stances on such economic issues as the tariff, public debt, and the national bank. Roger P. Leemhuis, (Washington, D.C., 1979); , 4:593; , 16:768-69; (online). of South Carolina, and Phelps18Born in Simsbury, Connecticut, John Smith Phelps (1814-86) was a Democratic congressman from Missouri (1845-63). Educated at Washington (Trinity) College in Hartford, Connecticut, Phelps practiced law in his hometown before moving to Missouri in 1837. He maintained a large farm and continued the practice of law until he entered the Missouri legislature in 1840, and then served for eighteen years in Congress. He chaired the influential Committee on Ways and Means during the time of Smith’s brief career in the House. When the Civil War broke out, Phelps enlisted as a private in a Missouri Union regiment, rising to the rank of colonel. He was later appointed military governor of Arkansas by Abraham Lincoln. Phelps continued to practice law until his death. , 17:431-32; (online).
of Mobile—all three of whom
are not only judicious, and clear-headed, but swift, in business. Brecken-
ridge19John Cabell Breckinridge (1821-75), of Lexington, Kentucky, was a lawyer, soldier, and Democratic politician. Educated at Centre College, Transylvania University, and the College of New Jersey (Princeton), he won election to the state legislature in 1849, to Congress in 1851, and to the vice presidency in 1856. In 1859, while still vice president, he was chosen to fill a Senate term slated to begin in March 1861. During the 1860 Democratic convention in Charleston, South Carolina, he declined to be considered a presidential candidate, but later accepted nomination by the anti-Douglas wing of the party, which met in Baltimore in June 1860. In the general election, Breckinridge received nearly 700,000 votes, running third behind Lincoln and Douglas. In his brief tenure as senator, he attempted to ward off secession by urging the implementation of the Crittenden Compromise. When Union troops secured Kentucky, Breckinridge resigned from the Senate and joined both the Kentucky (Confederate) provisional government and the Confederate army, in which he rose to the rank of major general. After the war, Breckinridge escaped to Cuba and lived briefly in Europe and Canada before returning to his Kentucky law practice in 1868. William C. Davis, (Baton Rouge, La., 1974); Heck, ; , 3:7-10.
of Kentucky is, perhaps, behind none of them. He gave us but few
specimens of his powers. They were sufficient, however, to prove, that
his very keen and vigorous intellect is habituated to business. Judging
from the admirable discharge of his duties, as Speaker, Boyd20Linn Boyd (1800-59) was a Democratic congressman from Kentucky (1835-37, 1839-55).He received little formal education, and became a farmer and a politician, following in his father’s footsteps. His public career began in the Kentucky statehouse, where he served four terms. Initially elected to Congress as a supporter of Andrew Jackson, Boyd capped his Washington career by serving for two terms as Speaker of the House (1851-55), including the turbulent period surrounding the House approval of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Boyd was later elected lieutenant governor, but died before taking office. Holman Hamilton, “Kentucky’s Linn Boyd and the Dramatic Days of 1850,” , 55:3, 185-95 (July 1957); , 1:340-41; , 2:527-28; , 3:313-14; (online).
of Ken-
tucky must be, in all aspects, one of the best business men in the House.
Letcher21John Letcher (1813-84) was educated at Randolph-Macon College and Washington College, both in Virginia. The editor of the Lexington (Va.) Valley Star from 1840 to 1850, Letcher also practiced law. He served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1851-59) as a Democrat. Gerrit Smith’s observation about Letcher’s business acumen may be attributed to the latter’s conservative stand against governmental spending. After leaving the House, Letcher held the governorship of Virginia (1860-64) during most of the Civil War. F. N. Boney, John Letcher of Virginia: The Story of Virginia’s Civil War Governor (University, Ala., 1966); ACAB, 3:699; DAB, 11:192; ANB, 13:526-28; BDUSC (online). of Virginia, and Jones22George Washington Jones (1806-84) was born in Virginia and later migrated with his family to Tennessee. Jones was apprenticed to work in the saddle trade. He held several public offices before being elected to the state legislature in 1835, where he established a reputation for honesty and integrity. His tenure in the state senate was marked by his distrust of banks. Jones was particularly proud of his support for the bill that abolished imprisonment for debt. Jones resigned his seat in 1840 for a position as court clerk of Lincoln County. Jones returned to politics, winning the first of eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1843. Jones sat on the Ways and Means Committee for three/ terms. Considered an expert on parliamentary procedure, he frequently presided over the House when the Speaker stepped down. Jones withdrew from his race for reelection in 1859, but remained active in state politics, becoming president of the state party convention in 1860 and representing Tennessee’s 7th District in the Confederate Congress. Jonathan Atkins, “The Purest Democrat: The Career of Congressman George W. Jones,” , 65:21 (Spring 2006); (online).
of Tennessee, are as expert in stopping
business, as any members of the House are in doing it: and to stop busi-
ness is, often times, more meritorious and useful than to do it.
Chandler23A native of Massachusetts, Joseph Ripley Chandler (1792-1880) relocated to Philadelphia, where he operated a female seminary and edited several periodicals. He became president of the board of directors of Girard College, founded to educate orphan boys; in addition, he championed prison reform. Elected to Congress in 1849 as a Whig, Chandler served three terms, but was defeated for reelection in 1854. In Congress, Chandler was known for scholarliness and eloquence. President Buchanan later appointed Chandler U.S. minister to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. He was an accomplished writer, publishing books, essays, pamphlets, and addresses on a number of subjects. , 1:573; , 3:614-15; (online). of Pennsylvania, is prominent among the scholars of the
House. Judge Perkins24 John Perkins, Jr. (1819-85), was born in Natchez, Mississippi. Son of a cotton planter and judge, he graduated from Yale College and Harvard Law School and established a law practice in New Orleans. He began public service in 1851 when he was appointed district judge. Perkins was elected to the Thirty-third Congress in 1852, serving one term before returning to the bench. He then served as a delegate to the Louisiana Secession Convention in Baton Rouge in 1861. As chairman of the Committee of Fifteen, Perkins prepared the secession ordinance that was passed on 16 January 1861. He later served in the Congress of the Confederate States. At the conclusion of the Civil War, Perkins briefly resided in Mexico and Europe, returning to Louisiana shortly before his death. Robert Dabney Calhoun, “The John Perkins Family of Northeast Louisiana,” , 19:70-88 (January 1936); (online).
of Louisiana, struck me as a gentleman of very
great refinement, both in mind and manner. F. P. Stanton25A native of Alexandria, Virginia, Frederick Perry Stanton (1814-94) attended Columbian College, now George Washington University, in 1833. Upon graduation, he read law, was admitted to the bar of Alexandria in 1834, and later practiced in Memphis, Tennessee. Stanton was elected to Congress in 1845 as a Democratic representative from Tennessee, and served for the next ten years. He was first a member and then chair of the Committee for Naval Affairs. His last term in congress was spent on the Judiciary Committee, which he chaired, too. In 1857, President Buchanan selected Stanton as governor of the Kansas Territory. Stanton, a supporter of slavery, appointed delegates to the Lecompton Convention, which drew up a state constitution authorizing slavery. Stanton later took notice of the people’s wishes, reevaluated his own views, and helped promote a referendum on the Lecompton constitution. The vote resulted in the defeat of the constitution, after which Stanton switched his political affiliation to the Free-State party. He remained territorial governor until Kansas’s admission to the Union in 1861, when he was defeated for a seat in the U.S. Senate. During the Civil War, Stanton returned east to practice law in Washington, D.C., and later settled in Florida. , 5:650; , 17:523-24; (online). has a rich and
beautiful mind. Its turn is as speculative, as R. H. Stanton’s26 The older brother of Frederick Perry Stanton, Richard Henry Stanton (1812-91) was also born in Alexandria, Virginia. He studied law and began a legal practice in Maysville, Kentucky, in 1835. From 1835 to 1842, he also edited the Maysville Monitor. A Democrat, Stanton served in Congress from 1849 to 1855. After failing to be reelected to a fourth term, Stanton worked as Kentucky’s state attorney from 1858 to 1861. After serving as a district judge from 1868 to 1874, he practiced law until his retirement in 1885. (online). is practical.
The former of these brothers lives in Tennessee. The latter in Kentucky.
With the single exception of Richard, who is all facts and figures, the
whole Stanton family, in several of its generations, is highly poetical.
The House can boast of wits, also. Ewing27After attending public schools, Presley Underwood Ewing (1822-54) graduated from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, and Transylvania University’s law school in Lexington, Kentucky; he studied theology, too, at the Baptist Seminary at Newton, Massachusetts. He later practiced law in Russellville until being elected to the Kentucky legislature (1848-49). In 1851, Ewing was elected as a Whig to the U.S. House of Representatives; he died in office. (online). of Kentucky, is inferior to
none of them.
I could name several members of the House who are decidedly elo-
quent. Gov. Smith28William Smith (1797-1887) was born in Marengo, King George County, Virginia, and educated at private schools in both Virginia and Connecticut, where he studied law. Admitted to the bar in 1818, Smith began practicing in Culpeper, Culpeper County, Virginia. After establishing a line of U.S. mail and passenger coaches through four states in 1831, Smith served in Virginia’s state senate from 1836 to 1841. He was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives (1841-43), but lost his bid for a second term. Smith was elected governor of Virginia in 1846 and served in that position until 1849. In that year, Smith made an unsuccessful attempt to run for the U.S. Senate. He moved to California, where in 1850 he served as the president of the first Democratic state convention. After returning to Virginia in 1852, Smith was again elected to the U.S. House, where he served until 1861. Following Virginia’s secession, Smith served as colonel of the Forty-ninth Regiment of the Virginia Infantry, and was eventually promoted to major general, despite being “wholly ignorant of drill and tactics.” He was elected to the Confederate Congress in 1862 and became governor of Virginia in 1864, where he served until 1865. He subsequently retired to his estate near Warrentown, Virginia, where he served as a member of the state board of delegates from 1877 to 1879. Concord , 19 December 1845; Richmond , 2 January 1864; Atchison (Kan.) , 28 March 1887; Richard Nelson Current, ed., , 4 vols. (New York, 1993), 4:1479-81; (online).
of Virginia, with his lively mind, smooth and ready
utterance, and various other qualities, must be very effective “on the
stump.”29The phrase “on the stump” refers to the use of a tree stump as a platform for public speakers. Over time, it came to be associated with political orators. Brewer, , 1334. I wish Banks30After completing a common-school education in Waltham, Massachusetts, and a stint in a cotton mill superintended by his father, Nathaniel Prentiss Banks (1816-94) pursued a number of occupations—actor, lawyer, newspaper editor—before winning election to the Massachusetts legislature on his seventh attempt. Banks served two terms in Congress (1853-57), first as a Democrat and then as a Know-Nothing. He resigned from Congress to serve three one-year terms as the Republican governor of Massachusetts. In 1861, Banks was appointed major general in the Union army, but in December 1862, following two defeats by Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, he was transferred to Louisiana to replace Benjamin Butler as commander of the occupation forces. Banks received considerable censure from abolitionist groups for his attempts to accommodate Louisiana planters by establishing a code for black labor that coerced “idle” freedmen either to return to their plantations or to work on government-controlled estates. In the spring of 1864, Banks’s skill as a military commander again came into question when his expedition up the Red River was routed by the Confederates. His checkered military career did not, however, deter Massachusetts voters from sending him back to Congress for seven more intermittent terms after the Civil War. Fred Harvey Harrington, Fighting Politician: Major General N. P. Banks (Philadelphia, 1948); C. Peter Ripley, Slaves and Freedmen in Civil War Louisiana (Baton Rouge, La., 1976), 45-56; James M. McPherson, The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction (Princeton, N.J., 1964), 128-31; ACAB, 1:158-59; NCAB, 4:222-23; DAB, 1:577-80.
of Massachusetts, would lay hold of themes wor-
thy of his fine powers of oratory. He would find it easier to be eloquent on
them than on inferior subjects. Indeed, a great cause is itself eloquence;
and the most, which he, who speaks for it, needs to do, is to stand out of
its way, and let it speak for itself.
Benton31Thomas Hart Benton. in respect to his remarkable fulness of political knowledge,
and, in some other respects also, is, of course, the great man of the House.
But he is not the only strong man there. There are more than twenty in the
Body, who deserve to be called strong men. There is no lack of talent in it.
I wish I could add, that there is no lack of morals and manners in it. But,
whilst some of the members are emphatically gentlemen, in their spirit
and in their personal habits, there are more of them, who use profane lan-
guage, or defile themselves with tobacco, or poison themselves with rum. I
trust, that the day has already dawned, in which it will not be allowed, that
can be guilty of such coarse and insulting wickedness, of such
sheer nastiness, and of such low and mad sensuality. You were a slave,
until you had reached manhood. Hence, the world is surprised, that you
have risen into the highest class of public writers and public speakers.—It
is no less cause of surprise, how ever, that you are a dignified and refined
gentleman. Nevertheless, gentle man, and scholar, and orator, as you are,
there are strenuous objections to your taking your seat in Congress. How
ludicrous a figure, in the eye of reason, is that member of Congress (and
there are more than fifty such!) who, in one breath, swears, that he would
not so disgrace himself, as to sit by the side of “Fred. Douglass;” and who,
in the next breath, squirts his tobacco juice upon the carpet!
I became pretty well acquainted with nearly all the members of the
House. In very many of them there was much to please me—much, in-
deed, to win my affectionate regards. Nevertheless, I could not be blind to
the glaring fact, that Congress preeminently needs to witness the achieve-
ments of the Temperance reformation,32Uncoordinated efforts to reduce the excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages began in the United States in the early nineteenth century. The large-scale religious revival movement known as the Second Great Awakening made “teetotalism,” or the total abstention from all alcohol, a goal of its moral reformation of the nation. The American Temperance Union (ATU), founded in 1826, claimed over a million members, female as well as male, in 8,000 chapters across the country. Nationally, temperance movement activities focused primarily on the evils of alcohol consumption and intoxication, the benefits of abstinence, and on changing American alcohol culture through moral reform. Locally, some temperance groups looked to restrict public access to alcohol as a way to limit consumption. In 1851, Maine instituted a statewide prohibition on the manufacture and sale of alcohol, setting a model that eleven other Northern states soon copied. Strong opposition from alcohol manufacturers, immigrant groups, the courts, and many politicians, however, caused this early experiment in prohibition to be abandoned by the start of the Civil War. Ian R. Tyrell, (Westport, Conn., 1979), 33-48, 135-59, 195-206; W. J. Rorabaugh, (New York, 1981), 5-122.
and the Tobacco reformation,33The antebellum movement to curtail tobacco consumption developed in parallel with the larger antialcohol campaign. Criticism of tobacco usage dated to the colonial era, but organized efforts to prohibit the practice of smoking began in the years following the Second Great Awakening. The American Anti-Tobacco Society, formed in 1849, focused on the deleterious impact of smoking on health and morals. The society an many individual reformers prepared and circulated literature aimed at changing public attitudes regarding smoking. The Civil War, however, produced an increase in the smoking of cigars and the newly introduced cigarettes, erasing most of the progress made by the original antitobacco crusade. Ruth Clifford Engs, (Westport, Conn., 2000), 42—44; Joseph C. Robert, (New York, 1949), 106-11.
and the religion of Jesus Christ.
Your friend,
GERRIT SMITH.
PLSr: , 1 September 1854; , 16 September 1854; [Gerrit Smith], (New York, 1856), 403-11.