Letter from Francis Barry.

Mr. Editor: — I agree with you that it is a great fault of the colored people that they are poor. A large share of the whites are in the same fault. O, that our world were free from the curse of poverty! And were the principles I hold in regard to property carried out, it would be thus free. But terrible as is poverty, wealth is no less to be dreaded and shunned. For, besides the soul-withering influence it directly exerts, it always carries poverty in its train; and that, too, for the many, while wealth can be only for the few. Why propose for a rule that which can only be the exception? I would have all adopt the language 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. so often quotes. "Give me neither poverty no riches." Were there no wealth, there would be comparatively little poverty. I would have nobody remain poor. If any one knows of a way in which he can lay out a dollar to advantage, and has not got it, I say to him, by all means—get the dollar.—But be sure and earn it, do not steal it; for there are only these two ways to get money. I would have every family accumulate five thousand dollars worth of property. This is as much as any family needs, and all could

easily get this amount, if all had their own earnings. It may be thought by some, that EthiopWilson, 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. is guilty of misrepresenting the sentiments of friend BenhamBenham, Elias P.

Elias P. Benham (c. 1805–63) was a native of Middletown, Connecticut before moving to Michigan sometime before 1850. Benham was a farmer but also worked for the cause of fugitive slaves and free Blacks seeking land in Michigan and Canada. He was the corresponding secretary and fundraising agent for the Refugee Home Society in Michigan in the 1850s, a subscription agent for the Voice of the Fugitive, and an agent for the Canada Land Company. In 1861, Benham volunteered for the 7th Michigan Calvary Regiment, eventually becoming its chief saddler. He died in service at Fairfax Court House, Virginia. Middletown Conn.) Constitution, 10 June 1863; 1850 U. S. Census, Livonia, Wayne, Michigan; 1860 U. S. Census, Aurelius, Ingham, Michigan; C. Peter Ripley, ed., The Black Abolitionist Papers, 5 vols. (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1986), 2:254; “Index to Volume V,” Journal of Negro History, 5:495 (October 1920); “Elias P. Benham,” United States, Civil War Soldiers Index, 1861–1865, Familysearch.com. and myself. Not at all (!) He says that I raise the cry of thief, at the heels of "all whose pecuniary condition is above the common level of the blacks." Ethiop's ears deceive him. In regard to raising the cry of "stop thief," after the "business" men he speaks of, it depends upon the kind of business they are engaged in. "Business" is rather a suspicious character. I think the Dutchman's idea of the matter, about the true one, "do people goes about do streets all day, cheatin one another, and dat they call pizness." Ethiop says I would have a horde of idlers; he is mistaken, I would have no such thing. It is a new idea to me, that the wealthy classes are the hardest workers. I imagine that, as a general rule, those who do the least work, get the most money; and vice versa, and again, that wealth, luxury, effieminacy and idleness generally go hand in hand. The idea of becoming a thief and a robber, by learning a "good trade," is one of the laughables. I care not how many learn good trades and work at them, and by the way, there are a great many now doing nothing to profit, who should be apprenticed to good trades, even if there are no "openings" this side of the penitentiary. Our divinity doctors, political doctors, and drug doctors, could not be better disposed of. Instead of being nuisances in society, they might, in this way, be turned to some good account. I must try and explain how a rich man's family may be robbed of mental culture.

The case, I suppose, was of a man becoming rich by his own labor. Of course in this case the man must devote his whole time and energies to the hoarding of money—must work from morn till night, and save every farthing; he would have no time to cultivate his own mind, or educate his children; no money to buy a library, or pay for a dozen newspapers; no money or time to attend lectures, conventions, &c. Is the case now plain? But without appropriating other people's earnings, it is still impossible to become very rich. No man can get fifty thousand dollars without stealing it; and it is the worst species of robbery, for it is the poor man's earnings, the widow's life, the orphan's bread. Ethiop speaks as though friend B. and myself had proposed some other course for colored people than the one we would have the whites pursue; and more than insinuates that, we cherish a prejudice against color. Seeing that meanness is the rule, and honesty the exception, it will be an easy matter to make those, unacquainted with us, believe that we belong to the popular class. These are grave charges, and should not be made without the shadow of a reason. I am very jealous of my reputation. I do not covet popular applause; but I do desire the respect and confidence of good men. I make no distinctions, except on the ground of character. No man has a right to steal, simply because he has a light complexion.

Francis BarryBarry, Francis

A frequent contributor to the Liberator in the 1850s, Francis Barry, a founder of a utopian community in Berlin Heights, Ohio, was an advocate of spiritualism and free love. He and his wife, Cordelia, were members of the free-love community of Firelands and edited a short-lived utopian periodical, the Age of Freedom. Lib, 24 November 1854, 14 January, 26 July, 2 November 1855; Perry, Radical Abolitionism, 192. .

Berlin, May 8th, 1852.