FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO GERRIT SMITH

Rochester, [N.Y.] 29 May 1851.

Gerrit Smith Esq.Smith, 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 have no answer yet from our Friend Thomas.¹John Thomas. I wish it may be favorable when it comes. Should it be otherwise—I will not urge the union further, but press my “Star” onward, with all the means I can command. I do not mean that the “Star” shall die at any rate—nor shall it take one step backwards as to the Anti Slavery Character of the U. S. Con[stitution] nor of the duty of political action on the subject of slavery. I have got letter from Ward²Samuel Ringgold Ward.—and have replied to it this morning. I think he will accept of the

union.³Douglass made arrangements to merge the North Star with the Syracuse–based Liberty Party Paper edited by John Thomas. Douglass hoped that a third paper, the Impartial Citizen, edited by Samuel Ringgold Ward, would join his venture as well. Ward chose to maintain his failing paper, but did agree to act as a New England correspondent for the newly formed Frederick Douglass’ Paper. NS, 12 June 1851; FDP, 26 June 1851. I offer him—first all the donations and collections he can obtain for the paper as a travelling agent. I offer him—fifty cents for every cash yearly subscriber he shall obtain for the paper—and half that for half yearly subscribers. I offer him-three doll[ar]s per week for his services as Corrisponding Editor of the paper. Still further I offer him what you Gerrit Smith Esq. shall designate as a fair price for his subscription list.

Mr. Thomas misapprehended me in one or two particulars. I was not surprised that he held his services so high—or so low—but was puzzled to know—where the money was to come from with which to pay him. I told him—that I preferred Rochester to Syracuse, as the place of publication.

A remark in Mr. Thomas’s letter makes it necessary for me to say,—that, in the event of the union of papers,—you may hold me—morally, intellecually, and mechanically responsible for the character of the paper. However impertant I may, in that event, deem the services of my friend—Mr. Thomas,—and how much so ever—I may avail myself of his friendly counsel, I shall not put the helm in other hands than my own. It is proper to be thus explicit to avoid future misunderstanding.

Julia Griffiths sends, with my own—her sincere regards to yourself and Mrs. Smith.⁴Ann Carroll Fitzhugh Smith.

Most truly your’s

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

ALS: Gerrit Smith Papers, NSyU.