GERRIT SMITH TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Peterboro, [N.Y.] 1 June 1850.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS—

MY OUTRAGED AND AFFLICTED BROTHER:—

I have just read, in the last North[ ]Star, the article in which you inform your readers of the insults, and violence, and threats of assassination, which you encountered in your recent visit to New York.¹In May 1850 a mob attacked Douglass and Julia and Eliza Griffiths, British sisters, after a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York City. While strolling along Battery Park, a fashionable promenade frequented by middle- and upper-class whites, a group of angry white men approached the trio. The men expressed their displeasure at a black man’s walking in the equal company of white women by shouting obscenities. Not satisfied, the men then assaulted Douglass, beating him mercilessly. A police officer stopped the attack when one of the women attracted his attention. NS, 30 May 1850; Gilbert Tauber and Samuel Kaplan, The New York City Handbook (New York, 1968), 404–05. This article stirs the lowest depths of my sympathy and love. I sympathized with you and loved you before, but much more now.

All this cruel and outrageous treatment you suffer, because you are a colored man; or, rather because, notwithstanding you are a colored man, you presume to demean yourself as a man, and to let your lips and pen give expression to those rare powers with which you are endowed. Were you ignorant and vile, you might go to New York or elsewhere every month, without being molested; but, being intelligent, and eloquent, and refined, and high-souled, you are a shining mark that cannot escape the notice and cannot fail to provoke the jealousy and wrath of a people educated to de[s]pise and hate the colored race.

It will be long, my dear brother, before you will be able to travel in

America uninsulted and unharmed. So long as the conventional and sham Christianity, which builds negro-pews, and which qualifies and limits social rights by complexion, shall bear sway in this land, so long you will be exposed to insults and injuries. It is this spurious Christianity which subjects you to discomforts and insults, and exposes you to violence and murder. It is this which educates and lets loose the mob upon you. It is this which moulds the WebstersWebster, Daniel

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) was a lawyer and statesman known for his stirring oratory. As a lawyer, he successfully argued many cases before the Supreme Court, such as the 1816 Dartmouth College case and the 1819 McCulloch v. Maryland case, earning a reputation as a strong nationalist. During the War of 1812 Webster represented New Hampshire in Congress (1812–46). Then, in 1827, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, where he remained in service through most of his life. He continued to take strong nationalist positions in political debates, attacking Andrew Jackson’s 1832 veto of the Second Bank of the United States and opposing Nullification in 1832–33. Webster accepted appointment as secretary of state under William Henry Harrison and was the sole cabinet member from Harrison’s presidency to retain his office during John Tyler’s administration. In 1842 he negotiated the Webster-Ashburton Treaty with Great Britain, establishing the modern boundary between the United States and Canada, but resigned his post a year later and returned to the Senate in 1845. In 1848 Webster made an unsuccessful bid for the Whig presidential nomination, losing to war hero Zachary Taylor. In 1850 Webster once again left the Senate to act as secretary of state under Millard Fillmore, a move that placed him in a good position to bid for the presidency; but he lost the 1852 Whig nomination to Winfield Scott. Though not an abolitionist, he opposed the extension of slavery in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Mexican-American War, and the enforcement of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. Robert V. Remini, Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time (New York, 1997), 15–21; ANB, 22:865–68; DAB, 11:585–92. ²Daniel Webster. and DickinsonsDickinson, Daniel Stevens

Daniel Stevens Dickinson (1800–1866), one of the leading conservative Democrats in antebellum New York politics, entered the U.S. Senate in 1845 following the resignation of Nathaniel P. Tallmadge. He was an outspoken opponent of the Wilmot Proviso and earned the praise of both Henry Clay and Daniel Webster for his support of the Compromise of 1850. Dickinson left the Senate in 1852 but remained an active campaigner for the Democratic party. NS, 26 April 1850; Daniel S. Dickinson, Speeches, Correspondence, etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson, ed. John R. Dickinson, 2 vols. (New York, 1867); DAB, 3:294–95; NCAB, 5:388–89. ³Daniel Stevens Dickinson (1800–1866), one of the leading conservative Democrats in antebellum New York politics, entered the U.S. Senate in 1845 following the resignation of Nathaniel P. Tallmadge. He was an outspoken opponent of the Wilmot Proviso and earned the praise of both Henry Clay and Daniel Webster for his support of the Compromise of 1850. Dickinson left the Senate in 1852 but remained an active campaigner for the Democratic party. NS, 26 April 1850; Daniel S. Dickinson, Speeches, Correspondence, etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson, ed. John R. Dickinson, 2 vols. (New York, 1867); DAB, 3:294–95; NCAB, 5:388–89. of the Senate, and the MorsesMorse, Sidney Edward

Sidney Edwards Morse (1794–1871) was a New England inventor and author who founded the New York Observer in 1823 with his brother, Richard Cary Morse. He remained at his editorial post until 1858. Morse also published a number of geographical texts and both statistical and religiously oriented atlases. Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 3:421n; DAB, 7:251–52. of the New York Observer⁴Sidney Edwards Morse (1794–1871) was a New England inventor and author who founded the New York Observer in 1823 with his brother, Richard Cary Morse. He remained at his editorial post until 1858. Morse also published a number of geographical texts and both statistical and religiously oriented atlases. Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 3:421n; DAB, 7:251–52. and the BennetsBennett, James Gordon

Founder, publisher, and editor of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett (1795–1872) helped foster American popular journalism. Born in Scotland and educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood, Bennett emigrated to Nova Scotia in 1819. Positions in Boston and New York led him to a career in journalism. From 1826 to 1829, he served as the associate editor and Washington correspondent of the New York Examiner, and in 1831 he became associate editor of James Watson Webb’s Morning Courier and New York Enquirer. In 1835, after several unsuccessful efforts to become a publisher and editor in his own right, Bennett established the Herald, a daily paper that sold for one cent a copy. Others had tried “penny-press” journalism, but Bennett’s Herald was the first major success in that business. He frequently ridiculed abolitionists, who retaliated in kind. Oliver Carlson, The Man Who Made the News (New York, 1942); Isaac C. Pray, Memoirs of James Gordon Bennett and His Times (New York, 1855), 331–45; Don C. Seitz, The James Gordon Bennetts, Father and Son: Proprietors of the New York “Herald” (Indianapolis, Ind., 1928), 110–18; DAB, 2:195–99. ⁵James Gordon Bennett. of the New York Herald and which makes expediency, instead of principle, the governing motive of them all.—This spurious Christianity is indeed a murderous and a dev[i]lish thing. Would that all its churches but that they would be rebuilt—might be burnt up, and that all its ministers might be huddled together where they could repent and do no harm.

A negro-pew church, a church of Christ! What a misnomer! I would not honor it so far as to call it the church of the Devil. The Devil is not so unreasonable—I was about to say, not so unjust—as to classify persons by the color of their skin. Even the Devil is willing to leave to its operation the great law, that character assigns to every man his place.

But think not, my dear Douglass, that it is you colored men alone who suffer from this insane and rampant prejudice. The wound it inflicts on you, it inflicts on us who s[y]mpathize with you, and who have identified ourselves and made ourselves colored men with you. In your sufferings, we suffer. In your afflictions, we are afflicted. Did I never tell you, that one reason I so seldom leave my house is that, because of my sympathy with my colored brethren, I am made so unhappy abroad? I look around for them in vain.—They are not there to share with me in my comforts and privileges. It is true that I am not thus tried in the churches I attend when from home, since I attend no negro-hating churches. For some fifteen years, I have shunned such churches, as I would a pest-house.⁶Gerrit Smith’s concern with the established Christian denominations and their tendency toward discrimination and proslavery attitudes was well established. He was an outspoken critic of all ministers and denominations that segregated congregations or refused to speak out against slavery. Although he remained a member of the Presbyterian church for many years, as early as 1818 Smith became involved in a nondenominational reform movement called Christian Union that was devoted to the abolitionist and temperance causes. In 1843 Smith formally withdrew his membership in the Presbyterian church and organized the nondenominational Church of Peterboro, which practiced no discrimination and had a strong antislavery and reformist orientation. Harlow, Gerrit Smith, 196–205; McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 95–96, 159. But when traveling and visiting, I cannot always steer clear of the places and occasions where my colored brother is despised, and hated, and crucified. I often find myself in public houses and private houses, in steamboats, and cars, and omnibuses; in gatherings and circles, where I know my poor colored brother (if allowed at all) is not allowed to be as the equal of the white man.—And how can I be happy in such circumstances! How can I enjoy that in which my equal brother is permitted no participation? Even the attempt to enjoy it, I feel to be traitorous to him; and if enjoyment begin, the rising of such a feeling arrests and withers it. In such circumstances, I am wont to remember that, by reason of the interference and remonstrance of his sympathy with others,

David had not the heart to slake his raging thirst with the water offered him.⁷A reference to 2 Sam. 23:16.

Despair not, however, my dear brother.—All will be made right, and in due time. The religion of Jesus—the religion of the Bible—that will prevail; and when it does prevail, it will make all right. For it is not a slavery or caste religion; but a religion of love, and freedom, and equality. You and I shall not live to see its prevalence. But it is our privilege to labor for it, and to live and die in the assurance that Jesus shall yet reig[n] in this sin-crazed and sin-ruined world; and that He shall yet “shew who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.”⁸1 Tim. 6:15.

With great regard, Your friend and brother,

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. .

PLSr: NS, 13 June 1850. Reprinted in ASB, 29 June 1850; Lib., 5 July 1850.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO SAMUEL MAY, JR.¹Often confused with his cousin Samuel J. May, Samuel May, Jr. (1810—99), was also a Uni
tarian minister and Garrisonian abolitionist. Samuel May, Jr., held a pulpit in Leicester, Massachu
setts, until becoming a full-time abolitionist. From 1847 to 1865 he served as general agent of the Mas
sachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, coordinating its conventions and lectures. Merrill and Ruchames,
Garrison Letters, 3:480n; NCAB, 29:244.

Rochester, [N.Y.] 13 June 1850.

MY DEAR FRIEND MAY:
I would most gladly respond to the kind invitation, which you have ten
dered me, by assembling with my Dear old friends, the members of the
Massachusitts A. S. Society, on the fourth July:²2. The New England Anti-Slavery Society held a special meeting at Abington, Massachusetts,
on 4 July 1850. The group invited Douglass, but he was unable to attend. At the meeting May read to
the society Douglass’s response to the invitation. NASS, 25 July 1850. but regret to say that I
shall be deprived of that pleasure—by a previous appointment, which takes
me to Cincinnatti on that day.³In the 27 June 1850 issue of the North Star, Douglass announced his intent to speak at Tem
perance Hall in Cincinnati on 4 July. On the same day he also delivered antislavery addresses at both
the Dumas Hotel and the Colored Orphans Asylum. NS, 27 June 1850. While this arrangement, perhaps, will be
even more advantageous to our common cause—Since it will enable us to
be heard east and west at the same time—I do not miss the opportunity of
Seeing my old friends—without a pang.

I shall be most happy to attend Some of your contemplated one hun
dred conventions⁴In May 1850, those attending the New England Anti-Slavery Convention pledged money to
support a series of One Hundred Conventions, modeled upon the successful campaigns of 1843 and
1844, and gave the responsibility of organizing the conventions to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery So
ciety. While a number of conventions took place in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and
Rhode Island, it appears that the endeavor was not as successful as anticipated because many lecturers
that year chose to speak instead in the Midwest and West. Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Nine
teenth Annual Report: Presented to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (Boston, 1851).—though I fear that my duties at home—and especially
those connected with my paper will make it impossible for me to attend
many.

I am most Sincerely Yours

FREDERICK DOUGLASS