Rochester[, N.Y.] 23 May 1856.

HON. 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. :

MY DEAR SIR.

I hope you are the better of your cold. If all be well I shall certainly meet you at Syracuse. I am released from my earlier appointments in Ohio.

Now I want your counSel. Your unceasing interest in me and in my paper, and in the cause to which it is devoted, makes it right that I should Seek your counSel.

I am almost convinced that my paper can not be sustained. I am now full fifteen hundred dollars in debt for it—and have on hand only Six hundred Dollar from my friend Julia Griffiths¹Contributions from Gerrit Smith kept Frederick solvent in its earliest years, and Julia Griffiths was instrumental in bringing additional revenues into the newspaper. After Griffiths’s return to Great Britain in mid-1855, the finances of Douglass’s newspaper went into steep decline: as the size of the Liberty party decreased, Douglass’s paper could not generate a sufficient number of subscribers to meet its expenses. Quarles, , 91–96.—to pay my creditors. My paper is deep in its ninth year. I have done my part toward putting it on a permanent footing. I have failed, at least for the present. My credet is good and I might go on. But is it right and best? I am almost persuaded that it is not. The prospect is dark. My paper is dying of the desease which carried the “”²The was a weekly newspaper edited by Samuel Green in Utica, New York, in the late 1840s. It promoted the ideas of its editor’s father, Beriah Green, on manual labor education and other reform and religious causes, including abolitionism. In 1848 the stood by the remnant of the Liberty party, led by Gerrit Smith, rather than joining the more popular Free Soil movement. , 28 July 1848; Henry J. Cookinham, , 2 vols. (Chicago, 1912), 1:287; Sernett, , 27, 30–31. to its grave. It is opposed to the Republicans of fifty six—as was opposed to Free Soilers in forty eight. My paper is not Republican—and therefore Republicans look coldly on it[.] It 1s not Garrisonian and therefore Garrisonians hate and spare no pains to destroy it. Mean while the colored people do very little to support it. Now what shall be done—Shall the paper go down and be a total wreck—or Shall it be Saved by being merged into the Radical abolitionist[?]³When the Central Abolition Board, which evolved into the American Abolition Society, was created at a convention in Syracuse in late June 1855, William Goodell was a key figure. The new organization adopted Goodell’s monthly periodical, the , as its official journal, changing its name to the . Although the claimed as many as three thousand paying subscribers, it depended heavily on financial subsidies from Gerrit Smith. It was published as a monthly until December 1858, when Goodell, following quarrels with Smith on questions of religion, abandoned it. Perkal, “William Goodell,” 249–50, 253, 257, 277, 283–84; , 7:384–85. Cannot the Radical abolitionist be made a weekly journal and some way be devised by which my subscription list be transferred to that of the abolitionist. I am sick at the thought of the failure of my paper—and humbled by the thought that no negro has yet succeeded in establishing a press in the United States—but when I a man cannot stand up he must fall down. I have struggled about nine years to establish such a press—and although I had when I began five or six thousand dollars—lI should not have now, half that Sum but for the Success attending my lectures last winter and the sale of my Book—The nine years have almost gone—My Children⁴Frederick and Anna Murray Douglass were parents to five children: Rosetta (1839–1906), Lewis Henry (1840–1908), Frederick Jr. (1842–92), Charles Remond (1844–1920), and Annie (1849–60). are growing up—and increasing their demands upon me—and it becomes me to Submit to the humiliation of failure rather than blindly go on till all is lost. I ask nothing for my self in this business. I do not even ask for a place in the paper—but simply ask that you will help me to Save my paper from positive failure—by merging it into the radical abolitionist.⁵No such merger of Douglass’s newspaper with Goodell’s occurred. The executive committee of the American Abolition Society discussed the idea on 17 July 1856 but tabled the notion. Smith, who remained a financial patron of both editors, most likely helped Douglass through that crisis, as he had on past occasions. Perkal, “William Goodell,” 253, 267. I suggest this to your own private eye. While I do not ask any place in the Radical abolitionists—as an editor—or assistant in case my paper is merged—Yet It might be an element of strength to the concern to have me in Some way connected with it.

I am, My Dear Friend, very Truly yours,

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

[P.S.] I lectured last night to the largest audience in Corinthian Hall,⁶ Douglass spoke to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society at Corinthian Hall in Rochester on 22 May 1856. , ser. 1, 3:xxv. which has assembled here during the past Winter.

I hope you will not consider the forgoing an appeal to your pockets—
for it honestly is not.

Personally I am quite “well off" in the world—Having health, and
heart, a good house and lot, a little money—and a wide field of usefulness
as a lecturer in the cause of freedom. My Bondage and my freedom—will
Sell, as long as I can lecture—so that I regard myself well provided for—
for the present.

Love to Dear Mrs Smith⁷Ann Carroll Fitzhugh Smith.

Again Yours

F. D.

ALS: Gerrit Smith, NSyU.