Rochester March 22^d 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. ,

Sir, my dear friend, I am at home, and am at home quite sick with my old throat disorder of which I had hoped I was entirely rid because it passed me by so gently last year. It is now however upon me, much after the old fashion—but less severely than formerly.

No, Mr. Smith, Your are not down, Lies cannot put you down. Why, [illegible] as I am, it will take something bigger than big lies to put me down, with the smiles of God and the approval of my own conscience, even I, can stand and I have more faith in your ability to stand, than in my own. I am glad you gave three good dollars to the cause of freedom in Kansas and hope you will use your power in that Country to Shame the free State men out of their contemptible selfishness in excluding the free Colored man out of that Territory. The dark spirit that would forbid Gods sable children in Kansas would drive them of the footstool. It is the principle of slavery, I am anxious to see the Call in the Syracuse convention. Please make friendly mention of me to Mrs Smith and to all your Dear ones.

Yours Truly alway

Frederick Douglass