Letter from Gerrit Smith, Esq.

Mr. Editor:—I have just read a printed sermon of Hiram P. CrozierCrozier, Hiram P.

Hiram P. Crozier (c. 1823–83) was a Unitarian minister in Brooklyn, New York in the mid-nineteenth century. He was born in Wyoming County, New York, and went west to study at Oberlin College as a young man. After graduating, Crozier returned to New York and engaged in dry goods and banking. At about thirty years old, he began studying theology and was ordained in the Presbyterian Church. Crozier was made pastor at the church in Peterboro and became friends with abolitionist leader Gerrit Smith. After converting to Unitarianism, he moved to Long Island and became engaged in the insurance industry. Poor health caused Crozier to retire in about 1881. Brooklyn (N.Y.) Daily Eagle, 9 March 1883; 1860 U. S. Census, Town of Huntington, Suffolk, New York. . There is much instruction in it; and it is strongly characterized by his brilliant and fruitful mind.

Mr. Crozier has added notes to his sermon. One of them does me great injustice. I would say so to Mr. Crozier himself, had not his printed circular of August 31st, 1849, terminated the intercourse between us. His assault in that circular upon the memory of my father left me no desire to continue such intercourse.

The obvious design of the note in question is to prove me to be a Sectarian for having voted for the removal of Mr. Crozier from the pastorship of the "Church of Peterboro." This would, perhaps, be proved, if I held the [conscious] views of the office of pastor and of church organizations. But, inasmuch as I do not hold them, my vote should not be compared with them - should not be interpreted in the light of them.

I believe, that the christians of a place are the church of such place: and that every member of a church has, simply in virtue of such membership, the right to exercise his preaching gifts in the presence of his church. To elect a man to the office of pastor, gives him no right to preach. To dismiss him from it does not take away his right to preach. Mr. Crozier had the same right after, as before his dismissal, to preach to the "Church of Peterboro." It is true, that I regret the preaching of error by a pastor more than by another. Only, how-

ever, because the pastor is regarded as the chosen preacher—as the authorized mouth
of the church. But, in point of fact, every preacher should be regarded as preaching on his own responsibility only.

Had I my will, there would be no technical ministry. Although a "layman," I have preached dozens of sermons to the "Church of Peterboro:" and I, habitually, urge my brothers and sisters to follow this example. It is my, and their, absolute right to preach. But it is not my, or their, absolute right to be pastors. If I, today, ask the "Church of Peterboro" to make me its pastor, and am denied my request, I must not complain that my rights are invaded. Nor, if I am elected pastor to-day, and dismissed to-morrow, am I at liberty to complain of such invasion—The preacher is neither elective nor deposable. But the pastor is both: and even such comparatively little things, as manners and dress, may properly be taken into the account in choosing or dismissing him. I have in the "Church of Peterboro" a beloved brother, who thinks, that to refuse to vote for a person for pastor, because he is a [illegible]-baptist or immersionist, would be violative of his principles of christian union.—He is wrong. Neither the choice nor dismissal of a pastor has anything to do with these principles. That christians should, in spite of all possible mutual differences, cling to church fellowship with [illegible] other—that, and that only, makes up the one great and beautiful distinctive doctrine of Christian union, held by the "Church of Peterboro."

I much regret that Mr. Crozier was not more full and accurate in the facts of his note. The reader of it could not conjecture from it, that Mr. Crozier astounded and grieved his church by suddenly declaring that one day is as fit as another for work and play; that he felt as free to work upon his wood-pile, or, in his potato field, on the Sabbath as on any other day; and that he would like to see the young people of Peterboro making excursions of pleasure on the Sabbath, such as going up to the Lake and sailing upon it. Nor could he conjecture that Mr. Crozier did, in opposing the proposition for his dismissal, broach and strenuously adhere to the novel and amazing doctrine, that being a christian and being "apt to teach," his right to the pastorship was as absolute as his right to a place in the church. And I have it to those who were notoriously impatient with me for delaying to take steps for the removal of Mr. Crozier from the pastorship, whether it is right to speak of such removal as having taken place "at the instance" of myself. I admit, however, that I should not blame myself if it had taken place "at the instance" of myself.

Gerrit SmithSmith, 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. .

Peterboro, April 7, 1852.