For Frederick Doulgass' Paper

GOOD NEWS FROM THE "LAND OF STEADY HABITS"
—

PUTNUM, July 17 1853.

DEAR DOUGLASS: — We had a glorious 4th. We had a great assembly in a splendid grove— Hon. FRANCIS GILLETT was the orator. His speech was neither polished nor finished. It was bold and thorough against Slavery in all its aspects. Its most radical parts were most applauded by the masses. That means something.

Hon. EX-GOV. CLEVELAND followed with an out-bursting extemporaneous speech, which fixed the attention of some whose ears the voice of Mr. Gillett had failed to reach. The Hon. Ex-Senator and Ex-Governor "used Freedom," as the good brethren say. He called on all to quit old parties—have no more to do with them. "Let them go to the winds!" he exclaimed, in a voice as strong as Gerrit SmithSmith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71. 's, and the people shouted—and the woods rang with the joyful echo. My heart leaped for joy. Two great moments are needed here in Connecticut:

1st. Let the churches break their pro-slavery allegiance.

2nd. We want lecturers who shall present the Constitution of the United States as "ordained to establish JUSTICE," &c.

The false position of the churches and the wrong construction of the Constitution are the two great bulwarks of Slavery here. Take these away and the old political parties are not worth naming as obstructions to the cause of Righteous Civil Government.

Mr. C. C. BURLEIGHBurleigh, Charles Calistus

Charles Calistus Burleigh (1810-78) was born in Plainfield, Connecticut, and received his early schooling at Plainfield Academy. He had begun to study the law when an attack he published on the Connecticut "Black Law" attracted the attention of abolitionist Samuel J. May. Through May, Burleigh was offered the editorship of the Unionist, a new antislavery paper financed by Arthur Tappan. Burleigh was instrumental in protecting William Lloyd Garrison from a mob in Boston in October 1835, and shortly thereatler became a regular contributor to the Liberator. In the late 1830s Burleigh became one of the editors of the Pennsylvania Freeman, later the organ of the Eastern Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Active in a number of reform movements, Burleigh plunged into the antisabbatarian campaign after he was arrested in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1847 for selling antislavery literature on Sunday. In 1845 he published a pamphlet, Thoughts on the Death Penalty, condemning capital punishment. He participated in the woman suffrage conventions in Cleveland and New York City in 1854, and the American Equal Rights Association meeting in 1867. In the 1870s he joined his brother, William Henry, in the campaign for temperance reform. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, eds., History of Woman Suffrage, 6 vols. (Rochester, 1881-1922), 1:148-51; C. B. Galbreath, "Anti-Slavery Movement in Columbiana County," Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, 30: 389-91 (October 1921); ACAB, 1:455; DAB, 3:284-85. has been here of late, and made a good Liberty speech, minus his disunion notions. He has noble zeal against Slavery. He has a true heart. Oh! that he would read the Constitution as Wm. GOODILLGoodell, William

William Goodell (1792-1878), a New York abolitionist and newspaper editor, helped to form both the American Anti-Slavery Society and the Liberty party. As a writer and editor, Goodell contributed to a number of reform and antislavery publications, including the Genius of Temperance, the Emancipator, the Friend of Man, the American Jubilee, the Radical Abolitionist, and Principia. Goodell's abolitionist ideals did not always fall in line with the Garrisonians. On religion, Goodell agreed wholeheartedly that established churches supported proslavery ideology, and he went so far as to establish his own nonsectarian church in Honeoye, New York, on the principles of temperance and antislavery. In contrast, Goodell broke with the Garrisonians on the issue of politics. He helped found the Liberty party, looking to use political means in the fight against slavery. Sorin, New York Abolitionists, 57-62; Perry, Radical Abolitionism, 46-48, 180-83; DAB, 7:384-85. and GERRIT SMITHSmith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71. do. What a host he would be! Now at this crisis in New England he is one of the strongest allies of the Slave Power. To have such an abolitionist decide that our Constitution is for Slavery emboldens the slaveholders that all their [illegible] in church, and in State.

Our Post Office has changed name—from Quinebaugh to PUTNAM.

Yours, truly, J. R. J.Johnson, James Rawson

Probably the frequent correspondent of Frederick Douglass’ Paper, James Rawson Johnson, an African American abolitionist from Syracuse, New York. Johnson was a supporter of the Liberty party and the religious abolitionist cause, as well as hydropathy. FDP, 26 June, 11 September, 9 October 1851, 1 January, 12, 26 February, 25 March, 8 April, 20 May, 9 July, 15 October 1852; DouglassPapers, ser. 3, 1:582-84, 587-88, 590-92, 596, 599.