Rochester July 15th. 1852

Gerrit Smith Esqr.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,

A word in regard to the Pittsburgh Convention. Can not that Convention be made to occupy such a position as that the "Liberty party" may properly vote for its Candidates? I believe it can—and I believe moreover, that could you attend that Convention, you would Stamp upon it the great principle of Righteous Civil Government to and give effect to many of the doctrines of the Liberty Party.

I want to attend that Convention — and to attend with you and to have the aid of your intelligent judgement in shaping my course. More Free Soil I am Sure will not Satisfy the masses who will attend that Convention. The abolitionists of the west are in advance of their leaders. They are ready for a more certain Sound than that which has of late caled them out to battle. Can you not go and give them that Sound? Yours most truly — and to the end.

Frederick Douglass