Gerrit Smith to Frederick Douglass, November 4, 1851
GERRIT SMITH TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Peterboro, [N.Y.] 4 Nov[ember] 1851.
MR. DOUGLASS:—
I left my sick wife1Ann Carroll Fitzhugh Smith. at the Water Cure in New Jersey2The water cure to which Smith refers was probably the Orange Mountain Water Cure, a spa located in South Orange, New Jersey, and operated by Dr. Joseph A. Weder. The establishment boasted of extensive acres of grounds and private rooms with attached private baths and offered transportation to the facility from locations such as New York City. Many abolitionists, including Angelina Grimké Weld, frequently patronized the facility. New York Daily Tribune, 4 November 1851; Robert H. Abzug, Passionate Liberator: Theodore Dwight Weld and the Dilemma of Reform (New York, 1980), 250–51. to come home to vote. I return to her in the morning. Were another proof of my insanity wanting, it would, perhaps, be furnished in the fact that I suffered my desire to vote to cost me six hundred miles’ travel.
Owing to the unfavorable state of the weather and roads, the vote of this town (Smithfield) is very light. It is as follows Liberty, 119; Democratic, 53; Whig, 39.3Members of Gerrit Smith’s circle of abolitionists in and around Smithfield were among the founding members of the antislavery Liberty party, formed in 1840. Madison County, in which Smithfield is located, typically returned the highest percentage of votes for the Liberty party of all districts in New York. Alan M. Kraut, “Partisanship and Principles: The Liberty Party in Antebellum Political Culture,” in Crusaders and Compromisers: Essays on the Relationship of the Antislavery Struggle to the Antebellum Party System, ed. Alan M. Kraut (Westport, Conn., 1983), 79–86; McKivigan, “Frederick Douglass–Gerrit Smith Friendship,” 210.
Yours,
GERRIT SMITH.
PLSr: FDP, 13 November 1851.
RICHARD D. WEBB TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Dublin, [Ire.] 7 Nov[ember] 1851.
MY DEAR DOUGLASS:—
I have to thank you for a copy of your paper, in which you take me to task
for my report of George Thompson's meeting in Bristol, and for my agree-
ment with his opinion of the Liberty Party.1 I thought of replying through
the Standard,2 but believe I had better address myself directly to you, and
if you think my letter worth insertion, your readers will have a better op-
portunity of knowing what I have to say for myself, than if I published my
reply in any other paper.
On refer[r]ing to my letter in the Standard of Oct. 2d,3 I find the fol-
lowing passage:
"Mr. Matthews4 having expressed a strong desire to explain the claims
and merits of the Liberal Party, his wish was acceded to, and, on the com-
mencement of the proceedings, he took the floor, and dilated at consider-
able length, on the principles and proceedings of those who devote their
time to an attempt to convince the people of the U.S. that their Constitution
does not mean what the people, their Judges, and their Legislatures, de-
clare that it means, and who are trying to form a party, to swear to this doc-
ument, with the intention of neglecting some of its most solemn provisions,
or are intending to keep them (and so renounce the claims of justice and hu-
manity,) until they can obtain a sufficient majority to turn the balance of po-
litical power in favor of an amended Constitution, consistent with the Dec-
laration of Independence, and with the cardinal doctrine of the abolitionists,
that "slavery is a sin that should be immediate abandoned."5