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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Hiram P. Crozier, New-York : Peterboro, August 9, 1849.

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 461

PETERBORO, August 9, 1849.

HIRAM P. CROZIER, New-York:

DEAR SIR,

I acknowledge your politeness, in sending me a copy of your Circular.

I confess, that I wrote the Resolutions of the Church of Peterboro, embodied in, and complained of in, your Circular. These Resolutions do not say, that you are in the liquor-department of your store. But you regard them as uncandid for not admitting, that you are not in that department. In my own humble judgment, such admission was entirely uncalled for, and would have been entirely superfluous. In my own humble judgment, it is quite immaterial, whether of the "six to twelve" clerks, of whom you speak, you are the clerk, who sells the sugars, or the clerk, who sells the teas, or the clerk, who sells the intoxicating drinks. Your several provinces are all parts of one whole. Your store is a unit, for the character of which every part of that unit is responsible ; and iniquity, permitted in one of the branches of the store, stamps the whole store with iniquity. That the clerks in your store should seek to rid themselves of responsibility for the moral character of each other's departments is exceedingly and ludicrously vain. This responsibility inevitably attaches to them, if only from the fact, that they all receive their wages out of the joint proceeds of their several departments. This responsibility inevitably attaches to them, if only from the fact, that they are all expected to be faithful to the interests of their employers. An evidence, that you are not willing to disappoint this expectation, is found in the fact, that you defend your right to collect debts due to your store, whatever may be the consideration of the debts. Indeed, when in this County, a few weeks since, you were so faithful to your employers, as to travel many miles to collect a debt due to them, which is, as I learn, a debt, not only partly, but wholly, for intoxicating drinks.

I observe, that one of your excuses for your connexion with a rum-store, is, that such merchants, as your employers are, adopt the cunning policy of having a variety of moral character among their clerks - of having a religious clerk in one department, and an irreligious clerk in another. You inform me, that, even in a rum-store, there is "some segment of the circle," where there is "a field for a temperance man": and you leave me to infer, since you, a minister of the gospel, have found a clerkship in it, that there is "some segment of the circle" in a rum-store, which even a minister of the gospel can occupy to the pecuniary advantage of the owner of such store. I have, long, been aware, that it is the cunning policy of our demagogues to get a minister of the gospel to eulogize, and give currency to, the wicked man, whom they nominate for President, or Governor, or some other high office. But, never, until I read your Circular, did I know, that rum-merchants practice a like trick, and seek to spread a captivating air of sanctity over their establishment, by installing a minister of the gospel into one of their clerkships. Alas, to what strange uses ministers of the gospel are put now-a-days!

I wish your case to have the benefit of every admission, from which it can derive benefit. Hence, I take pleasure in admitting, that you told me, that the liquor-department in your store is quite a subordinate one, and that it is kept up, not so much for its direct profits, as to accommodate and satisfy, and retain your customers. What, however, if for the purpose of accommodating, satisfying, and retaining their customers, your employers shall add another attraction to their store, and set up a brothel department in it? Will you, even then, consent to be their clerk? You hesitate to answer me. You are at a loss, whether to say "Yes" or "No". For, if you say "Yes", the people will all laugh at you, and you will even laugh at yourself; and if you say "No", you will, thereby, not only spoil the consistency and logic of your Circular, but you will, also, expose yourself to the searching and confounding inquiry, why you draw this wide distinction between the moral character of a brothel-department and the moral character of a rum-department. Again, it is not competent for you to draw this distinction, after having, as you have done in your Circular, stigmatized the rum-department in your store, as "WICKED AND ABOMINABLE". By what stronger words than these can you characterize a brothel-department?

You charge upon the Church, with which I am connected, "sectarianism and intolerance." Pardon the remark, that you are not, now, in circumstances to discuss the merits of a Church. Ere you can be adapted to such discussion, your hands, which are now red with the guilt of your business connexions, must be cleansed by the tears of your repentance.

You close with charging upon me "transcendent faults and blunders". I do not wonder at it and I add, that you can get all owners and clerks of rum-stores, and also all distillers and all farmers, who supply distillers with grain, to join you in making this charge. It is no secret, and no strange thing, that I am unpopular and unsavory with yourself and the whole rum-fraternity.

Your faithful friend,

GERRIT SMITH.