GERRIT SMITH TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Peterboro[, N.Y.] 30 Sept[ember] 1873.

MY DEAR DOUGLASS,

This is a very instructive as well as very beautiful letter that you have
written to me. Faithfully & ably have you pictured the disadvantages under which the black man labors. Nonetheless, notwithstanding those so
multiplied & so great disadvantages, he is rising, rising wonderfully—and
promises to attain, at no distant day, a manhood as full & as beautiful as
that enjoyed by the most formal varieties of the human family.

I am glad to hear from you that our dear friend General Howard was
as usual pleased with his visit to Peterboro. That visit is remembered here,
by both the old & young, with great interest.

I agree with you that the General has too much to do. He has a passion
to do good. He longs to help the poor Cubans amongst the needy ones.¹Most Radical Republicans, including Douglass, Gerrit Smith, and, probably, Oliver Otis Howard, were sympathetic to the Cubans fighting to win their freedom from Spanish rule. Some Americans had gone to Cuba to assist the rebels in their insurgency, and Howard had possibly mused about taking such an action while a visitor in Smith’s home. There is no record of him acting or even speaking publicly in favor of the Cuban cause. As Smith hoped, the general stayed on as Howard University’s president until the end of 1874. Howard, Autobiography; Logan, Howard University, 59–64; Calhoun, Presidency of Grant, 428–32.
But I know not who could fill his place, even for a brief season, at the head
of the University.²Gerrit Smith was a generous supporter of Howard University and freedmen’s education in general. One biographer of Smith calculates that the philanthropist contributed $4,600 to Howard between 1868 and his death in 1874. Harlow, Gerrit Smith, 485–86; Logan, Howard University, 79. Certain it is that I must not. I am an old man (76)³Smith was born on 6 March 1797, making him seventy-six years old. Harlow, Gerrit Smith, 3. and
infirm. Moreover, neither morally nor mentally am I fit for the place. The
religious element in me is far from strong, and my learning is quite moderate.

Hence I must decline the proposed honor—though I am very thankful
for the favorable opinions of me entertained by your Board.

I strongly hope that the Era will be sustained—& I hope it all the
more since learning that you have invested in it so large a portion of your
property.

My dear wife, who is not strong,⁴Smith often referred to his wife, Ann, as being ill, when in fact she was a hypochondriac. As she put it, “I am only comfortably sick.” Norman K. Dann, Practical Dreamer: Gerrit Smith and the Crusade for Social Reform (Hamilton, N.Y., 2009), 197. joins me in love to you, your wife
& children—

Your friend

GERRIT SMITH

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 32, frames 17–19, FD Papers, DLC.