Liberty Party Votes of New York at the Last State Election.

Friend Douglass:—I arrange these thus: I begin with the county which gave the highest number, and proceed regularly to those which gave the smallest number — Here are lessons to be studied. "Figures cannot lie."

Counties. No. Votes

Madison 422

Chautauque    366

Oswego      293

Niagara     194

Onondaga     [166]

Herkimer     134

Oneida     132

Wayne     104

Erie     97

Cortland     96

Orleans     86

Alleghany     84

Monroe     73

Warren     69

Washington    66

Ontario     65

Seneca     63

Cattaraugus    60

Wyoming     42

Chenango     42

Delaware     37

Jefferson     36

Essex     32

St. Lawrence   31

Tompkins     28

Livingston    24

Sullivan     21

Broome     19

Fulton and Hamilton    19

Montgomery   1[illegible]

[Saratoga]     18

Clinton     18

Yates     14

Tioga     14

Otsego     14

Steuben     11

Greene     9

Lewis     8

Genesee     4

Rensselaer    4

New York     3

Kings     3

Chemung     1

Dutchess     1

In Chautauque county, the Liberty vote was increased by the seizure of poor Harrison in the milk yard. In Onondaga county, the "Jerry" case produced an "Independent Ticket," and that reduced the "Liberty Party" vote. New York county only three! What does that mean? Can "CommunipawSmith, James McCune

James McCune Smith (1813–65), a prominent black physician, abolitionist, and writer, was born in New York City to an enslaved father and a self-emancipated mother. He attended the New York African Free School, but was denied admission to Columbia University, Geneva Medical College, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He turned to the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he received a B.A. (1835), M.A. (1836), and M.D. (1837). Upon returning to New York, he opened a pharmacy and medical practice that catered to both blacks and whites. He became involved in the abolitionist movement, serving as an associate editor of the Colored American in 1839, contributed regularly to the Anglo-African Magazine, and wrote correspondence for the North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper under the pseudonym “Communipaw.” Smith also wrote the introduction to Douglass’s second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). In 1861, Smith helped finance the revival of the Weekly Anglo-African to oppose black colonization and emigration, and he was a prominent member of the New York City Young Men’s Association, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the New York African Society for Mutual Relief. He was the sole attending physician of the Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children, a member and vestryman of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and a trustee of the New York Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children. In 1863 Wilberforce College appointed Smith professor of anthropology, but illness kept him from assuming his post. Lib., 1 June 1838; FDP, 18 May 1855; Douglass Papers, ser. 2:7–19; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 243; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 90–92, 103, 110; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 115, 134; Rhoda G. Freeman, “The Free Negro in New York City in the Era before the Civil War” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1966), 40–42, 177, 186, 195, 200, 247, 276, 286, 325, 353, 393; DAB, 27:288–89. " tell us? He has all sorts of knowledge, almost as much as "the school master." Or, can "Ethiop"Wilson, William Joseph ("Ethiop")

William Joseph Wilson (1818–?), a free black man from New Jersey, operated a bootmaking shop in New York City as early as the 1830s. In the 1840s he became a secondary school teacher and later a principal of a black school in Brooklyn. He was an activist on behalf of black education, encouraging access and attendance, and even opened his own library. Wilson also campaigned to secure the franchise for New York African Americans. He served as a member of the Committee of Thirteen, organized by New York black leaders to stop enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the early 1850s Wilson’s letters appeared frequently in Frederick Douglass’ Paper, and Douglass referred to him as the newspaper’s “Brooklyn correspondent.” Wilson’s letters to the newspaper, published under the pseudonym “Ethiop,” were often part of an ongoing debate about the condition of blacks in New York and the United States. Wilson’s most frequent sparring partner in the war of letters was “Communipaw,” actually James McCune Smith, a prominent black physician in New York City. Carleton Mabee, Black Education in New York State: From Colonial to Modern Times (Syracuse, N.Y., 1979), 54, 63-67, 123, 129, 155, 158; Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1:79-88; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 87, 212, 229; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:144-45n. give us light? Kings county only three! Brother S. S. Jocelyn, what does that mean? That one man in Chemung county, and that one in Dutchess. I mean to seek out as soon as possible.

We have here reports from forty-six counties. The remaining thirteen are, Cayuga, Columbia, Franklin, Orange, Richmond, Rockland, Schenectady, Schoharie, Suffolk, Ulster, Westchester, Putnam and Queens — Can it be possible that there was not one Liberty Party vote in Cayuga county? A Fitch, Esq., was it so? If any persons in any of these thirteen counties voted the Liberty ticket, let them duly report themselves, and they shall have credit. If any professed abolitionist anywhere, voted for pro-slavery men, let such repent, and at the approaching Presidential election, "bring forth fruit meet for repentance."

Yours,

J. R. JohnsonJohnson, James Rawson

Probably the frequent correspondent of Frederick Douglass’ Paper, James Rawson Johnson, an African American abolitionist from Syracuse, New York. Johnson was a supporter of the Liberty party and the religious abolitionist cause, as well as hydropathy. FDP, 26 June, 11 September, 9 October 1851, 1 January, 12, 26 February, 25 March, 8 April, 20 May, 9 July, 15 October 1852; DouglassPapers, ser. 3, 1:582-84, 587-88, 590-92, 596, 599. .

Ogden, April 12th, 1852.