A VISIT WITH GERRIT SMITH

—

FRIEND DOUGLASS:—In time of deep affliction, I am enjoying a visit with our mutual friend, 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. . When we are troubled, it does us good to meet with a great sympathizing heart.

My dear son JOSEPH left our quiet home in Syracuse on Monday, July 8th. He enlisted in the 27th Regiment N. Y. V., Col. Slocum, Co. K., Captain Martin. He was in the battle of the 21st of July, was wounded, taken prisoner, carried by the enemy to Richmond, Va, and there died Aug. 22d. His age was 20 on last January 25th. The loss of my son, and the thought of his sufferings, deeply affect my mind; but most of all am I depressed that he has been given up thus to die, while the Government is making such strenuous efforts to save slavery, the cause and the soul of the war.

It is cheering to find the pen of Mr. SMITH fully engaged to enlist the people and the Government to strike at slavery itself, and thus subdue the rebellion. May the Lord help him in this work!

This is Saturday, which day our friend regards as the Sabbath. We had religious exercises in his parlor. He read Psalm 46—'God is our refuge,' &c. His comments on the expression 'I will be exalted in the earth,' constituted a sermon which I wish all the world could hear. He gives no place to the idea that we can exalt God by mere form worship. That God will so overrule all events, including this terrible war, so as to make more clearly manifest his own perfections, is a consoling thought in this time of great tribulation. It is in this way that he will be exalted in the earth.

Oct. 6th, A.M—This morning, at family prayer, brother SMITH prayed, 'O Lord pity our guilty nation, and lead both North and South to repentance for their great sin of oppression.'

Monday A.M., Oct. 7th.—As I go to meet my sorrowing family, I take with me the sweet influence of the religious services of the 'Church of Peterboro," in which I united yesterday, in the morning, and in the afternoon. Yours truly,

J. R. JOHNSONJohnson, 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. .

PETERBORO, Oct. 5th, 1861.