Gerrit Smith to Frederick Douglass, June 9, 1851
GERRIT SMITH TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Peterboro, [N.Y.] 9 June 1851.
MR. DOUGLASS:—
It gives me great joy to learn that you and John Thomas have united your papers, and that the “North Star” and “Liberty Party paper” are “mingled into one.” I hope that Samuel R. Ward will look favorably upon this union, and bring his “Impartial Citizen” into it, and be one of your helpers in making the new paper successful. With Mr. Thomas for your assistant editor, and Mr. Ward for your corresponding editor, and with the continued
services of the excellent lady1Julia Griffiths. who has done so much for the “North Star,” I shall have no fear that your new paper will fail to be worthy of extensive patronage. I am glad to say, that I cherish very large expectations of the usefulness of this paper. I believe, that in some respects, it will be the best of all newspapers.
If you, who have been a slave, cannot speak effectively against slavery, who can? If you, who in common with all slaves, have felt the power of the sects to uphold slavery, cannot paint the abominations of sectarianism, where shall we find the painter to do it? If you cannot denounce to the last degree the ecclesiastical bodies, which, in satanic league with the parties, are studying to close the public eye, and deaden the public sentiment to the horrors of slavery, where is he, who is capable of such denunciation? I will trust you to speak of pro-slavery politics, and pro-slavery religions, as they deserve to be spoken of. I will, also, trust you to speak of the wrongs of woman, as well as the wrongs of the slave.
Mr. Thomas writes with signal ability in behalf of law, reform and temperance. His views of wars and traffic are sound.
No, I cannot doubt that your paper will testify ably and faithfully against the sectarian and sham and pro-slavery religions, which have succeeded in palming themselves upon the world, as the catholic and true religion of Jesus Christ. What a wretched world is ours, by reason of this substitution of the counterfeit for the genuine! How amazing the fraud, or infatuation of the religious body; be it church, or assembly, or conference, or what not, which can in the name of Christ, give the go-by to the subject of slavery! Does Christ turn his back upon his poor? Does Christ forget the woes of the slave? Revolting and blasphemous idea!
Not the least pleasing among my hopes of your paper, is my hope, that it will be true to the whole idea of a righteous, civil government; and that it will cooperate with the Liberty party, so far as that party is true to this whole idea. The past admonishes us not to commit ourselves, unconditionally and unqualifiedly, even to the best and most fair-seeming political party. The liberty party has once deserted its principles, and dashed itself to pieces. It may do so again. But, whilst the liberty party shall continue to go for every political truth, and for the every-way-just administration of an every-way-just civil government, I shall hope to see your paper go most heartily for the Liberty party.
Much joy is expressed that you have settled down upon the anti-slavery interpretation of the federal Constitution. I have observed for years,
that you were coming to this conclusion. But far more joyful to me is my knowledge of the fact, that you hold, and have long held, that slavery is incapable of legalization; and that Constitutions, as well as statute-books, are destitute of the power to give it validity. Law is for the protection, not for the destruction of rights. Hence, that is most clearly no law, which is enacted for the purpose of stripping men of all their rights, and turning into chattels. At the point, where government would reduce men to slavery, just there does it resolve itself into a mob, and just there is it entitled to no more loyalty and reverence than any other mob.—And whenever the President of this nation signs, or enforces an enactment for enslaving men, he is, in so doing, but a mobacrat and an anarchist; and the people are just as much bound to look with contempt upon his, as upon any other man’s mobocracy and anarchy. I speak in this wise of government and the President, not because of my deep and well-known conviction, that the federal Constitution is an anti-slavery instrument: for I would speak in this wise, even did I regard [the] Constitution as pro-slavery. Whatever may be Constitution and statutes of a people, their government is none the less bound to act in the spirit of your happily chosen motto: “All rights for all.”2The motto “ALL RIGHTS FOR ALL” appeared in the first issue of Frederick Douglass’ Paper on 26 June 1851, the same issue as this letter from Gerrit Smith. They who are destroying rights, must be allowed to plead no authority of earth or heaven for their accursed work.
In the light of what I have just been saying, they who resist the fugitive slave enactment, do not resist law. On the contrary, they do, therein, abide by law. It is they who enforce this enactment, who are guilty of resisting law. Such trample on all law, human and divine. Whilst to resist this enactment, is to resist but mobocracy, anarchy, and devilism. It was needless to say this, for every man feels its truth. There is not a man on earth, who, to escape from becoming the victim of this enactment, would not resist it. Men deny, that they are opposed to this enactment, as they deny that they are abolitionists; and I often feel irritated enough to say, that they deny with the one or the other, because in Bible language, “All men are liars.”3Ps. 116:8. There lives not a man, who is not an abolitionist, as thorough as I am, as full-blooded as you are. Allow to any man but five minutes, in which to prepare himself, or wife, or children, for unending slavery, and his anguished soul and quaking body will give full evidence that he is an abolitionist. I repeat it, every man is an abolitionist; every man is selfish enough to be an abolitionist for himself, but every man is not unselfish enough to be an abolitionist for others.
GERRIT SMITH.
PLSr: FDP, 26 June 1851. PLe: ASB, 2 August 1851.