FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO GERRIT SMITH

Rochester, [N.Y.] 4 June 1851.

Gerrit Smith EsqSmith, 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:

Mr. Thomas¹John Thomas. has almost signified his consent to the “union”. He is only inflexible on one point—to wit place of publication. I have sent him—a letter, giving reasons for establishing the New paper here, and expect soon to

have an answer favorably to that proposition. The “union” I now consider a fixed fact. I have no word from Brother Ward,²Samuel Ringgold Ward. since I wrote to you last. He will, I am sure, come out on the right side—and form a strong force in the new team.

The paper must appear as early as the first of July.³Douglass published the first issue of Frederick Douglass’ Paper on 26 June 1851. It should come forth with all the marks of strength—which can be given it. Your own highly valued name must not be wanting on this first Sheet. Thomas and Ward and I, myself, must come forth in our best cloths—and look as trim as any three officers in the french army. There must be nothing clumsy—hasty or awkward in our Debut.

The paper must be clean, white and strong. The Ink pure, black and glossy. The matter must be arranged with taste, skill and order, and our columns must be free from all typographical, grammatical orthographical—and rhetorical errors and blunders.

The matter shall be such as shall secure the approval of your descrimenating judgement.

To the necessary preliminary work. The new type should be bought at once. The new paper engaged at once. I ask for two hundred dollars from you to begin with⁴Douglass thanks Smith for a contribution of this amount in a letter dated 10 June 1852, a letter that appears in this volume.—the rest I will raise myself.

Most truly and gratefully yours,

FREDERICK DOUGLAS

ALS: Gerrit Smith Papers, NSyU.