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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

To the friends of the slave in the town of Smithfield.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 427

To the Friends of the Slave

in the Town of Smithfield:

[col. 1]

I have been at no small pains to learn the extent of the anti-slavery vote, at the late Town Meetings in this County. Having learnt it, (though I presume not with perfect accuracy,) I hasten to lay it before you.

FENNER,      32: It was, last Fall, 52
STOCKBRIDGE, 54: " ", 103
EATON,       91: " ", 156
LENOX,      115: " ", 163
SULLIVAN,   132: " ", 164
CAZENOVIA,  191: " ", 239
DE RUYTER,   75: " ", 95
HAMILTON,   140: " ", 150
LEBANON,     86: " ", 89
NELSON,      86: " ", 105
BROOKFIELD, 128: " ", 128
GEORGETOWN,  85: " ", 75
SMITHFIELD, 175: " ", 160
MADISON,    132: " ", 82
           1522       1761

There are various explanations of this falling off in our aggregate vote: but, however true, they are unsatisfactory.

It is said that a Town Meeting does not, like a General Election, draw out the whole strength of a party. But the anti-slavery voter should feel it to be his duty to improve every opportunity to testify for the slave. He should be as prompt to vote at the Spring as at the Fall Election. If men of the other political parties can absent themselves from the Town Meeting, because but inferior offices are then to be filled, it by no means follows that Liberty party men can do so. Liberty party men vote for a principle - for the great principle of impartial and universal liberty - as much so when voting for a Constable, as for a Member of Congress.

It is said, too, that many abolitionists voted for "Union Temperance tickets." There was, however, no more merit in their doing this, than there was in the like treachery to the slave of which I was myself guilty when, two years ago, I attended Town Meeting for the first time. It is true, that my vote on that occasion had the praise of being a Temperance vote: but, inasmuch as it was for a ticket composed of proslavery as well as anti-slavery names - of foes as well as friends of the slave - so I denounce it, and repent of it, as a vote justly chargeable with treachery to my enslaved countrymen. As a republican - as one who subscribes to the fundamental doctrine of a Republic, that "all men are created equal" - I had no right to cast a vote for any person but a republican; - and, certainly, he is not one who practically and totally denies this corner-stone doctrine of a republic by contributing to uphold a system which, instead of recognizing the equality of men, makes one man the property - the goods and chattels - of another. Another conclusive reason, why Temperance abolitionist cannot vote for the Temperance Whig or Temperance Democrat, is, that the temperance of the man whose heart is untrue to the slave cannot be relied on. When the waves of temptation beat upon it, it is more like to fall than to stand. Nothing is more uncertain than the expediency code of morals - "the streak of lean and streak of fat" morals. To-day, as you have yourselves witnessed, it sheds tears over the prospect that a rum man will be elected to the Board of Excise, and to-morrow it votes for him.

The town of Madison did well, at the late Town Meeting. But it might have done better. Yes, and all the towns in the County, had the abolitionists in them worked as long and as hard as the abolitionists of our town, might now be sharing in the honor which it and Georgetown are the first among all towns to enjoy. Such is the rapid progress of our principles in these two towns - such their affrighting power to evil doers - that the political proslavery parties were, in each of them, driven to unite with one another. In this town, as you know, they made out a ticket, having upon it nearly equal numbers of Democrats and Whigs: and this ticket, which is their own confession that Democrats and Whigs contend against each other for no principle, the Democrats and Whigs of this town voted for almost, if not indeed quite, to a man. Hitherto, the cry of the Whig party as been: "we must save the country from being ruined by the Loco Focos" - and the cry of the Democratic party has been: "We must save the country form being ruined by Whigs." But these parties, at least in this town, have themselves now shown us how utterly hypocritical is this cry - and that they are but the fellow-servants of slavery, and ready, when occasion requires, to join together in doing its dirty work against the cause of liberty. Shame on the Whigs and Democrats of Smithfield! - and the more shame on them because, instead of hiding their heads in conscious disgrace, they flatter themselves

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that, inasmuch as their joint numbers exceed, by a dozen or fifteen, the numbers of the Liberty party men of Smithfield, they are therefore entitled to hold up their heads amongst men of honor and integrity.

As I have often said to you, we have comparatively little to fear from the Democratic party. It is not ashamed of having sold itself to work Southern iniquity. It is not ashamed of being the open ally of Southern oppressors. It scorns to be called, either at the North or the South, an anti-slavery party. But from the Whig party, which as artfully as profligately adapts itself to circumstances - professing at the South to be the friend of slavery, and at the North to be the friend of the slave - from that chameleon party - we have every thing to fear. This party has the impudence to call on us to vote for Henry Clay. And who is Henry Clay? He is a slaveholder - a buyer and seller of his fellow-men. He has done more, and is doing more, than any other man to uphold and extend slavery. He is the man who, in the Senate of the United State, opposed the appointment of Chief-Justice Taney to the office which he now holds, on the ground that Mr. Taney is not a Democrat - and who brought forward, as proof that he is not, the fact that Mr. Taney voted in the Legislature of Maryland against receiving Missouri into the Union as a slave State. Pretty notions of Democracy has Henry Clay! Nevertheless, we may yet see Gen. Messinger, and Major Curtis, and Mr. P. G. Palmer, and other self-styled Democrats, voting for him at the next Election. For, if these gentlemen can vote with the Whigs in the Spring, why may they not vote with him in the Fall also? I know, indeed, that, with birds, Spring is "marrying time." But marriages in the human family are confined to seasons of the year. A "wedding" between Gen. Messinger and Mr. Huntington in the Fall is no more unnatural than a "wedding" between them in the Spring. I asked, who is Henry Clay? He is the man who, in one of his speeches on the floor of Congress, in behalf of slavery, said: "If gentlemen will not allow us to have black slaves, they must let us have white ones; for we cannot cut our firewood and black our shoes, and have our wives and daughters work in the kitchen." What say the hard-handed laborers of Smithfield to this? Can they vote for Henry Clay? Can they submit to the self-degradation of voting for a man who would be glad to see them turned into slaves?

Pardon me again for warning you against the most guilty and corrupting body of men in the land. I mean the Clergy. With comparatively few exceptions, they are unworthy and dangerous spiritual guides. It is not too much to say, that the minister who does not plead for God's poor, and especially for the poorest of God's poor, is a minister of Satan, not of Jesus Christ. Abolitionists, how long will you be guilty of yielding to your sectarian predilections, and of hearing a proslavery preacher because, like yourselves, he is a Universalist, or Presbyterian, or Baptist, or Methodist? How long before you shall feel that you owe more to the slave and to the truth than to sect? Who of you would attend on the ministry of the most admired preacher of your sect, were your own child in slavery, and that preacher to refuse to plead for it?

One of the most recent instances of atrocious clerical wickedness on a somewhat large scale, is to be seen in the proceedings of a Convention of Ministers in Lenox, Massachusetts. They pass Resolutions which chime in with the popular feeling of the North against slavery; and then declare, that a part of their plan of operating against slavery is: "to leave all the political party arrangements of the country wholly untouched, and to interfere with no man's exercise of the elective franchise, so that men of all parties are invited to act with us, and no man, in order to become a member of this Association, is required to abandon his political connections." These ministers would be consistent with themselves, were they to contrive a plan for promoting Temperance which shall "interfere with no man's exercise of the" rum-drinking privilege, but which shall leave every man free to get drunk. They would be consistent with themselves, were they to inform habitual liars, thieves, and adulterers, that they had discovered a way for getting them to Heaven without disturbing their wicked habits. What greater absurdity could these ministers utter than that men can help overthrow slavery, whilst they cling to parties which are the very pillars of slavery?

Why are these clergymen so much opposed to the breaking up of the great proslavery political parties? The ready answer is - because they foresee that the breaking up of these parties and the breaking up of the proslavery Churches must accompany each other; and that when the proslavery Churches are broken up, the occupation of proslavery ministers will be gone.

Your friend,

GERRIT SMITH.

PETERBORO, March 12, 1844.