Letter from the Editor.
Dear Readers:—Happy to believe that you have given your full consent to my long absence from the editorial chair. I beg to return you my sincere thanks for the same, and to tender you the assurance that I shall soon again be at my chosen post, where, with the blessing of God, I shall speak to you weekly. It is especially gratifying to me that you have evinced so little impatience.—Not one, that I have known, has been so cruel as to send back the paper, because of the dearth of editorial matter. Please observe, however, that I do not regard your singular forbearance as the result of any want of interest in my learned editorials! For to suppose that you do not seriously feel the loss of my valuable contributions, would be wantonly to rob you of the high credit always due to generous self-sacrifice. I do not say what harm would be done me by so mischievous a supposition. You have generously given me leave to go into "the hedges and highways, and compel them to come in." It is a good work; and while voice and health endure, it is pleasant work. I have spoken during these forty days, to about eighty meetings, and except a slight hoarseness, I am quite unhurt. The old disease, which has for several years caught me by the throat so severely, has been kind enough to pass me by this Autumn, and to leave me free to perform the duties of the stump.
You will perceive that I am now at work in 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. 's district. Much hope is entertained of his election to Congress. I have regarded this as an unreasonable hope. It has seemed to me too much to expect. Mr. Smith is too far in advance of the age and of the people, to command the votes necessary to his election. It is, however, proper to say, that I find myself almost alone in my scepticism on this point. Many think his election highly probably; everybody thinks it possible, while a great many hereabouts think it certain. I work on borrowed hope.

A few days will decide the contest. He may be defeated this time; but he is bound to triumph in the end. Should he be elected, the cup of my joy will be full.
You will be pleased to learn that the brave, heroic veteran, JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, having beaten back all his foes in Ohio, has now gallantly resolved to come to the help of freedom in this district. The venerable statesman and patriot will be hailed here with great enthusiasm, and will wield a powerful influence.
I should like to write at length; but talk is the order of the day, and I must be off.
Yours for liberty, and the election of Gerrit Smith,
Frederick Douglass.
Fulton, Oct. 25th, 1852.