MR. EDITOR:—I notice a letter in the last issue
of your paper, from your late able and efficient
associate editor, Wm. J. Watkins, to
which I feel disposed to say a few words in
reply.

With the motives which govern Mr. Watkins
in his present position, I have nothing to do,
farther than to express the hope that they are
such as ought to govern such a clear-headed and
faithful friend of the African race, as he has
hertofore shown himself to be. But his ACTS,
and the reasons which he puts forth in support of
them, are proper subjects of criticism. He says,
with great emphasis, that he supports Mr. Morgan
instead of Mr. 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. , because as an independent
man, he "SEES FIT TO DO SO." Such
a reason, or rather such a substitute for a reason,
is not quite worthy of so able a reasoner as Mr.
Watkins, James Buchanan and S. A. Douglas
could, with equal emphasis, give the same substitute
for a reason for their course. No man
has a right to set up his mere WILL as a reason
for his public course. We all sustain such relations
to God and man as to come under much
higher laws than our own will. Individuality
can never be a just plea for unfaithfulness to
social obligations; and when this is the prominent
and emphatic reason for our course, it should
excite a strong suspicion in our own minds, that
we are beyond the sanctions of higher and
better reasons.

Mr. Watkins goes on to say that by supporting
Morgan he can sooner strike a death blow to the
Democratic party. I do not believe this to be
true, but if it were true, it is not a sufficient reason
for his present course. He ought to aim a death
blow at Slavery, as well as at the Democratic
party. Of what use is it to kill the Democratic
party, and puts its offices, patronage, and power
into the hands of another party which makes
no practical issue with the Slave Power? The
crime of the Democratic party is its support of
slavery. But the Republican party, which Mr.
Watkins supports, declares that it has no intention
to abolish slavery. How much moral discrimination
does an Abolitionist show, by
choosing between two parties, one of which
supports slavery, while the other declares it has
no intention to abolish slavery? In the struggle
for the freedom of four millions of slaves,
the Democratic party is active for slavery. The
Republican party utterly refuses to interfere at
all in behalf of these four millions of slaves.—
Gerrit Smith and his friends alone demand the
freedom of these slaves, and yet Mr. W. insists
that we shall have full faith in his regard for the
slave, while he seeks to kill the Democratic
party, which is active for slavery, and the Gerrit
Smith party, which alone demands the abolition
of slavery, and joins the Republican party, which
has over and over again declared that it would
not interfere between the slaves and their masters.
Does he not make a monstrous demand

upon our faith in him?

What is the difference between the party Mr.
Watkins seeks to kill, and the party which he
joins, and for which he is ready to sacrifice Gerrit
Smith? Is there any essential difference so far
as he and his people are concerned? Let us
see. The Democratic party supports the Fugitive
Slave Act. The Republican party does not
oppose that act, nor even demand its repeal. Mr.
Morgan, if elected Governor, would not interfere
to save Mr. Watkins himself from slavery, if
some Southern villain should come up and
swear that he was his slave. And yet Mr. Watkins
stumps the State for Mr. Morgan, who
would not interfere, and against Mr. Smith
the only candidate for Governor who would interfere!

The Democratic party supports the Dred Scott
decision, " that black men have no rights which
white men are bound to respect." The Republican
party fires off speeches against this decision
in the North, but contemptuously refuses
to interfere with its enforcement against the
4,000,000 slaves, stripped of every right, and
"murdered all the day long" in the South—nay,
flaunts its pledge not to interfere, in the very
face of Mr. W., while he stumps the State in favor
of that party, and against Gerrit Smith, the
only man who practically opposes the application
of the Dred Scott decision to the slave.—
How does Mr. Watkins preserve his self-respect
while thus engaged? He cannot do it by falling
back upon his "individuality." Cain tried
that, and most signally failed. The Democratic
party is opposed to the right of suffrage being
exercised by the colored man. The Republican
party in this State, so far as its acts are a test, is
equally opposed to free suffrage for the African.
Here again Gerrit Smith is the only candidate
true to the colored man. Here again Mr. Watkins
opposes him for a party false to the rights
of his people.

The Democratic party is in favor of slavery
extension. The Republican party in Congress
voted to permit slavery to go into Kansas, pro
vided that a majority of the people of Kansas
were willing to have it there. The vote on the
Crittenden Amendment, brought the Republican
party on the platform of Squatter Sovereignty,
invented by Douglas, and Mr. Watkins
now stumps the State in favor of a squatter sovereignty
party.

The Democratic party is in favor of free rum
selling. The Republican party is not opposed to
free rum selling. Mr. Watkins wants to kill the
former, and inaugurate the latter into power, at
the same time killing Gerrit Smith, the only
temperance candidate. But Mr. Watkins says
Mr. Smith cannot be elected, and therefore he
will vote for Mr. Morgan. I said vote for Mr.
Morgan. Perhaps I am mistaken; perhaps Mr.
Watkins, being a colored man, cannot vote. If
so, he must feel very proud of his "individuality"
in supporting a party by his eloquence
which has never yet taken ground in favor of his
right to vote! Is it not a little singular that
he should boast of his "individuality" in one
paragraph, and then give as a reason for ignoring
his long professed principles, the fact that

on a count of heads, the numbers were against
him? The only reason why Gerrit Smith cannot
be elected, is because there are too many
just such men as Mr. Watkins among Abolitionists,
who graduate their principles to the chance
of gaining numbers. The Democrats can give
the same reason for not voting for Morgan. He
is not likely to be elected, and this logic would
land us in the bosom of the Democratic party—
yea, in the bosom of the devil himself, who is
certainly in the party which always has ruled
this nation, and largely in the majority. But
my letter, though unfinished, is growing too
long, and must be brought to a close.

MARION, Oct. 4th, 1858.

A. PRYNEPryne, Abram

Abram Pryne (c. 1822-62), a theologically liberal clergyman, entered New York abolitionist circles in the 1850s. Originally a supporter of Gerrit Smith and the Liberty Party, he served a term in the state legislature as a Republican representative from Wayne County (1860-62). In September 1858 Pryne and Tennessee minister, William G. Brownlow, participated in a public debate over slavery, which was stenographically reported and published as a book. Along with his clerical responsibilities, Pryne also edited a newspaper, the Progressive Christian, in the mid-1850s and later assisted Douglass with editorial tasks on the Frederick Douglass` Paper and the Douglass` Monthly. Ought American Slavery to be Perpetuated? A Debate Between Rev. W. G. Brownlow and Rev. A. Pryne (Philadelphia, 1858); DM, 3: 724 (October 1862); Lib., 30 October 1862. .