FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO GERRIT SMITH

Rochester, [N.Y.] 18 March 1849.

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 very much regret the publication of your letter in the “North Star” of last week.¹In a letter dated 9 February 1849, Gerrit Smith criticized Douglass’s contention that the U.S. Constitution was a proslavery document. That letter appears in this volume. NS, 16 March 1849. Had I dreamed that it was merely a private friendly letter, intended

for myself only it should have been held sacred. I shall of course publish the letter just come to hand unless otherwise directed by yourself.

You will of course excuse—my mistake and believe me sincerely and gratefully yours in the cause of Rightious Liberty

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

ALS: Gerrit Smith Papers, NSyU.