FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO GERRIT SMITH

Rochester[, N.Y.] 20 February 1856[.]
HON: GERRIT SMITH:
I cannot conSent to leave home again (as I shall do tomorrow if all be well) without Sending you a line expressing my Sincere Satisfaction, at finding you Still leading on the moral Sentiment, opposed to Slavery in
every Sense, and every where, as Shown in your letter to your friend—Governor Chase.¹Salmon P. Chase Your’s is the true word in the true time. Years to come it will be easier to Say all you Say, than now—and all the easier because you have made it So. I am now going to Ohio,²Douglass had many speaking engagements in Ohio during February and March 1856. From 21 February through 13 March, he was scheduled to speak in Xenia, Bellbrook, Cedarville, Springfield, Dayton, Painesville, and Hamilton. He was scheduled to lecture in Deshler Hall in Columbus on 24 February, Smith and Nixon Hall in Cincinnati on 3 March, an unknown location in Columbus on 4 March, and Chapin’s Hall in Cleveland on 5 March. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 3:xxv. to Spend a fortnight in lecturing. Thereafter, I Shall be more at home. My lecturing this winter has been constant—and as I have lectured before Lyceums—as well as other public bodies. I have, you will be glad to know, got Some money by my lectures. Five weeks Spent in New England—gave me the handsome [sum] of five hundred Dollars. In Ohio—I mainly go out as antiSlavery lecturer—and Shall get but little compensation other than what arises out of the consciousness of doing good and hastening the regeneration of the public mind. I have Stood my work well this winter—but I dare not boast much of my health—as I draw nearer the Close of winter my old throat disorder—will probably Show itself—I already begin to feel the Symptoms of its approach. Please to remember me kindly to Mrs Smith.³Ann Carroll Fitzhugh Smith. Both to you and to her Anna wishes to be remembered.
Yours most truly
FREDERICK DOUGLASS—

ALS: Gerrit Smith Papers, NSyU.