Rochester, July 20^th. 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,
Many thanks for your present. I shall not be able to go to Pittsburgh by way of Philadelphia. The journey would cost too much, and besides I should encounter the "American demon" that way, more than by way of Cleveland.
I Shall however meet you at the Convention. I Share the doubt you express, as to our being received as members of the Convention. If they don't receive us, the people will. Our Western friends must know Something of the Liberty Party and thou art the man to tell them.
I am off for Tomkins County tomorrow morning—and shall probably go to M^c. Grawville before I return home. A letter from Wm. R. Smith this morning expresses his belief that Wm. Goodell will go to England—to collect the ChaplinChaplin, William Lawrence

In August 1850 William L. Chaplin (1796-1871) was among a group arrested for aiding fugitive slaves. Originally a lawyer, Chaplin left his legal practice in Easton, Massachusetts, to devote himself to the abolitionist movement in New York in the 1830s. He worked for the Liberty party as a lecturer and editor, becoming an associate of Gerrit Smith. In 1850 Chaplin assisted a group of slaves who had escaped from slave owners Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs. Authorities arrested Chaplin and charged him with violating the Fugitive Slave Act in both Washington, D.C., and Maryland. Three of Chaplin’s longtime New York abolitionist friends, James C. Jackson, Joseph C. Hathaway, and Theodosia Gilbert, rushed to Washington to attend to Chaplin’s needs while jailed. Free Democrat Congressman Joshua Giddings and Senator Salmon P. Chase aided in Chaplin’s legal defense. Opponents of the Fugitive Slave Act, led by Smith, rallied around the case and posted the bond of $25,000 for Chaplin. Back in New York in 1851, Chaplin refused to return south for his trial and worked only briefly to raise funds to reimburse those who stood his bail. He drifted away from Gerrit Smith and, together with Jackson and Hathaway, moved into the Free Democratic camp. Chaplin later married Gilbert and joined Jackson in operating a water cure establishment in Glen Haven, New York. Henry Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 3 vols. (Boston, 1874), 2:80-82; Stanley Harrold, Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1826-1865 (Baton Rouge, La., 2003), 157-62; Friedman, Gregarioas Saints, 123; Harlow, Gerrit Smith, 290-95; Lawrence J. Friedman, “The Gerrit Smith Circle: Abolitionism in the Burned-Over District,” CWH, 26:19-37 (March 1980).In August 1850 William L. Chaplin (1796-1871) was among a group arrested for aiding fugitive slaves. Originally a lawyer, Chaplin left his legal practice in Easton, Massachusetts, to devote himself to the abolitionist movement in New York in the 1830s. He worked for the Liberty party as a lecturer and editor, becoming an associate of Gerrit Smith. In 1850 Chaplin assisted a group of slaves who had escaped from slave owners Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs. Authorities arrested Chaplin and charged him with violating the Fugitive Slave Act in both Washington, D.C., and Maryland. Three of Chaplin’s longtime New York abolitionist friends, James C. Jackson, Joseph C. Hathaway, and Theodosia Gilbert, rushed to Washington to attend to Chaplin’s needs while jailed. Free Democrat Congressman Joshua Giddings and Senator Salmon P. Chase aided in Chaplin’s legal defense. Opponents of the Fugitive Slave Act, led by Smith, rallied around the case and posted the bond of $25,000 for Chaplin. Back in New York in 1851, Chaplin refused to return south for his trial and worked only briefly to raise funds to reimburse those who stood his bail. He drifted away from Gerrit Smith and, together with Jackson and Hathaway, moved into the Free Democratic camp. Chaplin later married Gilbert and joined Jackson in operating a water cure establishment in Glen Haven, New York. Henry Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 3 vols. (Boston, 1874), 2:80-82; Stanley Harrold, Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1826-1865 (Baton Rouge, La., 2003), 157-62; Friedman, Gregarioas Saints, 123; Harlow, Gerrit Smith, 290-95; Lawrence J. Friedman, “The Gerrit Smith Circle: Abolitionism in the Burned-Over District,” CWH, 26:19-37 (March 1980). bail.
In haste yours most truly
Frederick Douglass