Syracuse University Library
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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Gerrit Smith's Acceptance

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 513

GERRIT SMITH'S ACCEPTANCE.

LETTER OF COMMITTEE.

Syracuse, August 4, 1858.

HON. GERRIT SMITH:

Dear Sir: -

We have been appointed by a State Mass Convention held in this city to-day, a Committee to communicate to you the proceedings of the said Convention, and to ask your acceptance of the nomination as a candidate for the office of Governor, which was unanimously made. We perform the duty assigned us with great pleasure, and in the confident hope that you will gratify the friends of Temperance and Freedom throughout the State by consenting to be their candidate.

We enclose you a copy of a Resolution inviting you to meet with and address your fellow citizens in various parts of the State.

Be assured of our kind regards and consideration.

IRA H. COBB,
ABRAM PRYNE,
WILLIAM GOODELL.

R E S O L U T I O N.

Resolved, That we hereby invite and urge our candidate to canvass the State, and meet the masses of the people in their several counties, to discuss before them, and with whosoever shall question him, the principles, measures and policy which should characterize the administration of the government of the great State of New York.

MR. SMITH'S REPLY.

PETERBORO, August 5, 1858.

Messrs. COBB, PRYNE, GOODELL:

Your letter is before me.

My years have been spent in seclusion. My habits are all formed to private life. It is emphatically true that public employments are not to my taste. Nevertheless, Gentlemen, I accept the nomination. More than this I shall, if it succeed, rejoice in the opportunity of wielding large official powers and influences for the removal of wrongs, which are my most intense abomination. Well aware am I, that my acceptance of this nomination will be regarded by many as very unwise - so small in their eyes is the prospect of its success. But convinced as I am that many thousands of the earnest friends of reform deeply desire my acceptance, I feel no liberty to withhold it. In these circumstances I must consent to be a candidate, however certain might be the prospect of my defeat. The seemingly insignificant origin of this movement is with many a strong reason why I should decline the nomination. But with me it is a strong reason why I should not. In the light of its humble origin this movement, already so extended, is seen to be spontaneous, and therefore far more to be respected and far more promising than if it had begun in the policy and concert of numbers.

A few weeks ago an editor in the County of Cortland proposed me for Governor of the State of New York. He did so, as I am informed, without consulting any one. Thus small was the beginning, which has grown so rapidly into the nomination, that you this day tender to me. There are many indications, that it may continue to grow no less rapidly. That it may result in my election is not an impossibility. Indeed, it could not fail to do so, if the real friends of Temperance, and Freedom, and Land Reform should only have the self-respect and nerve to stand by the nomination in the face of the fun which some editors will make of it, and of the anger with which some of them will blaze over it. If the men, who have made this nomination, shall be neither seduced nor driven from it; and shall show themselves to be proof against all the ridicule and all the denunciation and all the arts of demagogues; then will great multitudes come to their side. Such was the kind of men, who made my nomination to Congress in 1852: and it was their integrity and earnestness, their determination and firmness, that attracted to it an overwhelming majority. I do not forget that the whole political party machinery and the whole political press of the State are against the present nomination - a part of that press already bitterly and abusively against it - here and there going so far as to revive the wicked and shameful misrepresentations of my course in Congress. Nor on the other hand do I forget that the whole political party machinery of my District, and, with the exception of a despised Abolition sheet, its whole press were against the nomination in 1852.

I do not say that I expect your nomination will be successful. But I am kept from saying so only because I doubt whether those who sympathize with me in the reforms of the day will be able to go through this canvass an undivided host.

The fact is that the cause of Temperance (and the like might be affirmed of Freedom and Land-Reform) has failed at the ballot-box simply because its friends have failed to stand by it and by each other. They have lacked faith in it and in one another. They have been cowardly instead of brave; vacillating instead of firm; treacherous instead of true. Truth would always triumph, were her friends always faithful. But almost always do they in some way or other - by some calculation, or compromise, or cowardice - misrepresent, dishonor, and forsake her. The human heart is made to be conquered by truth. And when, as is sometimes the case in the moral world, "one chases a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight," it is always because the noble pursuers never lose hold of this conquering weapon.

The wisdom of making your nomination so early will be questioned. Our reformers have usually waited for the nominations of the parties. In the present instance however they have seen fit to be first in the field. I see not that they are unreasonable in this. They could not have hoped to be suited with the nominations of the party which, Ahab-like, has "sold itself to work evil"; which "drinketh iniquity like water"; and of which it may also be truly said: "Behold thou hast spoken

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and done evil things as thou couldest." I repeat that they could not hope for it - for surely they could not be ignorant of the real character of these spurious Democrats who, open and shameless and glorying in their wickedness, "declare their sin as Sodom and hide it not."

This Democratic Party, which these Bible words are so well fitted to characterize, studies every way for degrading, outraging, and crushing the black man. Hence its zeal to force slavery upon Kansas. Hence its pleasure in having the American flag protect slave-ships. Hence too its attempt, made but too successful by the help of some Republican Senators, to bully England out of the duty of every nation to stop the pirate, let what will be the flag he has run up. This is the Party, which rejoices in the Dred Scott Decision, and stands ready to hail that Decision of the Supreme Court which shall re-open the African slave-trade ; and that also which shall accord to slavery the Constitutional right to establish itself in every part of the nation as well in the States which repel, as in those which invite it. Nor are these Decisions far off. They will be upon us in a few years if the Democratic Party shall continue in the ascendant. In short there is no assignable limit to the deterioration of any party which dares to draw a line between present expediency and eternal morality. The party, that deliberately unmoors from principle, is no less liable than the individual who does so, to drift quite out of its sight and influence.

This Democratic Party is worse than even Senator Douglass thought it to be. His enemies had been wont to accuse him of familiarity with all the depths of its wickedness. But it turned out that it has a still lower deep than any which even he had explored. Even he thought there was a stopping place in the crimes of his Party against Kansas and human rights. But he finds there is none. With all his far-seeing and capacious intellect, he nevertheless failed to discern and comprehend the whole scope of the bad doctrines of his bad Party.

Nor worse is the Democratic Party in regard to Freedom than in regard to Temperance. Rum no less than slavery is its chosen and cherished ally: and it is not easy to decide which is most efficient.

I need say no more to show that it would have been vain for our reformers to wait for the nominations of the Democratic Party. But would it not also have been vain for them to hope that the nominations of the Native American Party would be such as they could approve and support? It is true that this Party does not, as does the Democratic, intend to go for slavery. Nevertheless it fails to go against it. It is also true that it is not the liquor-drinking, demoralized, and demoralizing Party that the Democratic is. Nevertheless it is very far from being a Temperance Reform Party. Moreover, whatever it may be or claim to be at these points, certain it is that it retains its great distinctive feature - its jealousy and proscription of those who come to us from other lands: and this is of itself sufficient reason why our reformers cannot harmonize with it. They hold that in choosing his home among us the foreigner establishes his title to our confidence and to equal political rights. They hold that in choosing it he ceases to be a foreigner; becomes an American; and should be treated as an American.

I have said that favorable nominations at the bands of the Democratic and Native American Parties were not to be hoped for. But was there not room to hope for them at the hands of the Republican Party? Perhaps there was : - but I hardly think it. I am aware that the reformers of our State are to be found chiefly in that Party. Nearly all of the antislavery and a very great majority of the Temperance men are to be found in it. I am aware too that many of its leaders are not only sound on the Temperance question but are deeply interested in the cause of Freedom. Other however of its leaders (and these are the more influential in the Nominating Conventions) are on the side of rum; and their anti-slavery, if such it may be called, is of a very superficial type. Were the Republican Party instead of the Republican leaders to make the nominations, we might hope they would be such as we could adopt. But since they are generally made by the leaders (and what is more the worst rather than the best of them) we find that no small share of the candidates are utterly unworthy of our votes.

It is with conflicting feelings that one surveys the Republican party : - so much is there in its masses to rejoice in - so much in its leadership to lament. Strong impulses of justice and mercy are in these masses. How sad that they should be repressed by political calculations! Frequently does a generous spirit move them. But as frequently does it encounter a chilling policy. Bravely would the Party go forward, were it not restrained by the timid caution and selfish reckonings of unworthy leaders.

No curse of earth is heavier or more wide-spread than land monopoly. Why does not the Republican Party testify against it? It would do so, were it not for this overruling caution and policy to which I have referred. The public lands, which should be granted to the landless without price, are passing rapidly into the hands of greedy and oppressive speculators; and the Republican Party, though now and then Republicans talk vaguely against it, is fairly to beset down as an unprotesting witness of this merciless robbery.

That deserves not the name of civil government, which does not shelter the innocent who flee to its jurisdiction. Never was there a conquered province that held its privileges by a tenure more degrading than is the relation of the Free States to the Slate Power. They would afford a home within their borders to the most peeled and persecuted of earth: - but that Power forbids: and they submit. Their name of Free States and their loud boasts of freedom are truly farcical. They are in fact all Slave States; and of their freedom, so long as it is modified by the bloodiest despotism, they ought to be heartily ashamed. The State of New York begins to be restless at seeing herself a Slave State. But whether she will not prove herself to be still too much debauched and debased by slavery to vote herself a Free State at the coming Election, is one of the great questions now before us. Thrice joyful event would be such a vote! For then in quick succession would each of the Free States follow the glorious lead of our own great State: and then the North, having exchanged her nominal and spurious for an actual and real freedom, would no longer give her sympathy and support to slavery: and then the South cut off from this vital resource, would see that she too must make herself free - or that she must perish.

I believe that the Republican Party, if only freed from the deceiving and perverting influences of its worst leaders, would vote to make New York a Free State. It is true that only sixteen months ago our Republican Legislature withstood our earnest entreaty for a law to protect our brothers and sisters who break out of the Southern Prison House, and bring Tip their poor bleeding bodies and bleeding hearts within the borders of our State. But the Republican Party would not have refused this justice and mercy. It was its leaders who were so unjust, and hard-hearted and foolish: - and only a part of them. Many of them favored the measure. Among these were Members of the Legislature. The Speaker (Mr. Littlejohn) was eloquent for it. Mr. Wooster and other prominent Members gave it their support.

That is the truest civil government, which takes into its most special keeping the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak. The higher the social grade the less need has it of governmental protection. But sad indeed is the condition of the lowest unless Government is incessantly vigilant in its behalf. Happy world this when all over it civil government shall, in the words of the heavenly volume: "judge the poor of the people, save the children of the needy, and break in pieces the oppressor."

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Shall we ever again witness in a Court of this State the heaven and earth insulting scene of trying a man under the blasphemous accusation that he is a thing, and that immortality is a commodity ! I am sure that the Republican Party would agree with me that the armed force of the State could in no wise be more suitably employed than in putting a stop to such an outrage. Nevertheless there are leaders of this Party so false to God and man, as not only to be willing to lot it go on, but even to prate of authority for it. Hasten the day when rulers shall be conscious of the dignity of human nature, and shall dare defend it! Hasten the day when the plea that there is law for trampling on that glorious nature and classing it with the brute's shall but aggravate the crime of doing so, and make its punishment more swift and certain and severe !

Surely the Republican Party, did but the leaders allow it to speak out, could not be slow to denounce the folly and sin of acknowledging slavery to be law. Through such acknowledgment is it that slavery gets and maintains its hold on the public forbearance, and rises from a base and bloody piracy into the dignity of an "institution." The people of the North wonder at the bold aggressions of slavery. They need not. So long as they consent to call the piracy an "institution," and admit it to be law, so long do they not only invite those aggressions, but leave themselves without excuse for complaining of them. They can make murder itself as respectable and prosperous as slavery, if they will only confess that it as well as slavery is law. Blake the worst thing, be it slave-holding or rum-selling, or what not, the subject of sacred law, and you thereby educate the people into the toleration, not to say the approval of it. I add that it is better to acknowledge murder than slavery to be law for that murder is a less crime than slavery every parent would testify who should be called to choose between slavery and the grave for the fate of his child.

Again, that deserves not the name of civil government, which does not protect both person and property. Indeed, such protection is the sole legitimate office of civil government. How idle therefore to claim that this office is fulfilled when dram shops are left to manufacture madmen ! All over our State maddening liquors are offered for sale for a drink; and they will continue to be until such liquors; so offered shall be held by Government to be a nuisance. A man transmuted into a monster by rum is now in the prison of my County, guilty of the unparalleled crime of literally cutting the hearts out of his parents' bosoms. For a brief season the rum-drinkers and even rum-sellers of his town stood appalled. But their courage and complacency are again restored - and all the more because Government has lately re-licensed the dram-shops of that town, including, as I am told, the very ones, which had educated the murderer into his crime - that matchless crime into which dramshops were the only power adequate to educate him. Do the masses of the Republican Party approve of bringing these manufactories of madmen under the wing of Government? I am sure they do not. Some of their leaders do. But let these masses remember their fearful responsibility for tolerating leaders who are in league with rum as well as land-monopoly and slavery.

I have this moment seen that a very influential newspaper of the City of New York charges me with a want of "fairness" and "truth" for holding that the Republican Party has proved unfaithful to "Prohibition." It adds that the Party "never committed itself" to "Prohibition?" But just in that non-committal consists its unfaithfulness. It is not enough that many Republican Judges and Legislators are in favor of prohibiting the traffic in maddening drinks. Until the Republican Party shall as such have adopted "Prohibition" as one of its measures, it is fairly to be regarded not as the friend but the enemy of Prohibition." What we require of it is that it shall be a Prohibition and an Antislavery Party before it can lay any decent claim to the votes of Prohibitionists and Antislavery men. I scarcely need say that the pretensions of the Republican Party of this State to be an Antislavery Party, so long as it has not the honesty and courage to insist that its own State shall cease to be a slave State, are both ridiculous and absurd. Does it say that it claims to be only a Party for the non-extension of slavery ? then is it, like every other one-idea political party unworthy of our votes. Every political party is to be condemned, that does not aim to identify itself with all the duties of civil government. Moreover that this Party does so little even against the extension of slavery is just because it is so unfaithful to the claims of freedom and righteousness at other points.

Let me here say that I do not hold that the sale of all kinds of beer and wine is to be proscribed by Government - though I would that all possessed the clear proof which I do (after an experience of thirty years) that good water is the only good drink. What I do hold is that Government should prohibit the sale for a drink of all those liquors which snake madmen and which therefore put in constant peril life and property; and fill the newspaper column with accounts of murdered wives and murdered children, wrecked ships and wrecked cars, burnt stores and burnt dwellings. It is a deep delusion where it is not a wicked pretext, which classes such prohibition with sumptuary laws. What if there were brought into the markets of the world a newly discovered fruit, the maddening effects of which should be in kind and degree like those of the liquors in question? - would not all reasonable men be in favor of the immediate governmental prohibition of the sale of it? Certainly: - and none would have the face to call the prohibition a sumptuary law. Why then should the prohibition in the case of liquors fall under that odious name? The force of habit accounts for all this glaring inconsistency; That men should in defiance of all reason submit to the traffic in intoxicating drinks with all its frightful perils, is explained by the simple fact that habit is stronger than reason.

But I must stop these trains of thought, which I have been led into by what I said to show that the reformers - or, in other words, the earnest friends of Freedom, Temperance and Land Reform - would probably have waited in vain for favorable nominations at the hands of the Parties. This is not the occasion for me to discourse extensively of my views of the province of civil government. Indeed, I should perhaps never, more do so, seeing that I have written so often on this subject during the last twenty years. Moreover, there is a better way for candidates to communicate with the people than by writing: - or even than by going about to make set speeches. This better way is to present themselves before assemblies of voters and submit to be searched by interrogatories. Would that all candidates for Governor might be thus probed by master hands in the presence of large gatherings of the people. The revelations thereby of spirit, creed mid character would greatly help the voter in making up his choice between them. The candidates for President also should pass through this ordeal. Had Mr. Buchanan been required to do so, the lies, which coupled his name at the North with "Kansas and Freedom," would never have been coined; Fremont would have been elected; and the Lecompton rascality have had no existence. Doubtless in the opinion of many the dignity of a Presidential candidate could not brook this contact with the multitude. But spurious is the dignity that would revolt at it. However exalted the candidate; he goes up instead of down when he gees before the people.

I notice that one of the Resolutions passed by your Convention calls on me to go through the State making speeches. But I do not wish nor need to make any more speeches. The patience of the people has already been sufficiently taxed with reading and hearing my numerous speeches. This much will I do however, and I trust it will satisfy your Convention. I will, so far as I can, go into any County which I may be invited to go into, and where the prospect is that I shall meet a large company of voters: - and then whatever questions growing out of the occasion shall in the presence of such company be put to the I will immediately attempt to answer. Of course I shall desire every one to feel at liberty to follow me and expose my ignorance or misrepresentation of facts and the flaws in my logic - reserving to myself however the right to review my reviewers.

I would too that there might be half a dozen great meetings in different parts of the State, which all the candidates for Governor might attend for the purpose of being questioned both by the meetings and by each other.

I hinted, Gentlemen, near the beginning of my letter, that your Convention and all who shall espouse its nomination will be liable to unmeasured censure and reproach. You will encounter the despotism of party, or rather of party leaders. Your right to act outside of party will be denied. An uprising of the people without the consent of their leaders - a popular movement uncontrolled by the usual and authoritative voices - will be frowned upon as irregular and unauthorized; presumptuous and impudent. Above all will you be denounced for selecting as your candidate one who is regarded as acknowledging no allegiance to party either in Church or State.

Let me not do injustice. I have recently seen in some Republican newspapers a tolerant language which is exceedingly grateful. Gov. King has with much honor to himself gone outside of his Party for a Canal Commissioner. The New York

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Tribune defends and commends this liberality. So does that other able press, the Albany Journal. Surely neither of these will be so inconsistent as to deny your right to go outside of party for your candidate. But not thus wise and liberal are all the Republican newspapers. I noticed one in Oswego, that was willing you should nominate whom you pleased, if only you would mean by your nomination a modest suggestion to the Republican State Convention, and would consent to give it up or abide by it, as that Convention might decide. According to this newspaper the people are the servant and the Republican Party the master. The servant may act, but only in submission to the master. This view of the relation of the people to party, which I must confess, is held in a very kindly spirit by the Oswego Editor, is put forth with great bitterness by one in Utica. Then his charge, that you and your associates were seeking to promote "side issues" by your nomination, is neither to the credit nor advantage of his Party. If Liberty and Temperance are "side issues" with the Republican Party, pray what must be its main issue ? Can it be other than office - the loaves and fishes ? If the Republican Party is desirous to relieve itself of four fifths of its members, it can do so very readily by taking the ground that Liberty and Temperance are "side issues."

I perhaps owe it to candor to admit my strong sympathy with the spirit and aims of the masses of the Republican Party. Perhaps too it may fairly be claimed that this sympathy with it is virtually my identification with it. But even if it cannot be, I nevertheless hold that it is not competent for the Republican Party to deny me a place in its membership, so long as the one essential difference between this Party and myself is that I act out its professions and it falls short of them. I notice that my old friend of the Albany Journal still recognizes me as belonging to the Republican Party: and this too notwithstanding there are so many Republicans who say they would gladly vote for me if I did belong to it. Whether however I do or do not belong to it, I must not fail to improve every opportunity to protest against the spirit of party. The less men are infected by it the better. The truer the type of their religion and the higher the plane of their civilization the less will party spirit prevail among them; and the less will be their favor toward all that party machinery, which works so energetically for party and so feebly for truth. But for political and ecclesiastical party organizations American slavery would long since have passed away, and probably the American dramshop also. One of the ways in which these curses maintain themselves is by taking advantage of party strifes in the Church and party strifes in the State.

One of the complaints that will be made of your Convention - indeed it is already in the newspapers - is that it asks votes for a man who is so fastidious as to refuse from year to year to vote for almost every candidate. To ask this is held to be unreasonable - not to say, offensive. The complaint is, I admit, founded in truth. For many years I have refused to vote for any one who acknowledges the sacred rights of property in maniac-making liquors when they are offered for sale for a beverage - also for any one who knows law for slavery. I vote for no man who allows the proslavery part of any Decree, or Statute, or even Constitution to create the least obligation in his conscience - for no man who does not look upon this guiltiest of all piracies to be as utterly incapable of legalization as any other piracy. If to be thus proscriptive is to disentitle myself to votes, so be it. I can afford to deprive myself of votes, but I cannot afford to trample on humanity and religion and to make myself the enemy of God and man.

Let it not be inferred from what I have just said that I admit there is slavery in the Federal Constitution. There is none. Apply to that organic law the same legal rules of interpretation applied to other laws, and not a particle of slavery can be detected. Moreover, as I have already intimated, slavery can no more than murder be embodied in law. This the American people know. For although in their contempt of the black man's rights they are ready to admit any thing against him, where is the white man who would admit the possibility of a law for slavery, were it to be applied to white men? Surely no candidate for office would dare do it. Only let Mr. Douglass and Mr. Lincoln say that white men are capable of legal enslavement, and Illinois will choose neither of them for her Senator. Let any one of the candidates for Governor of this State say so, and he will learn that offices are not in store for those who hold a doctrine so derogatory to the dignity of white men.

It is already objected to your Convention that the man it has put in nomination had a part in saving the celebrated Jerry from being returned to slavery. He confesses it. But who among the objectors, were his own son in the circumstances poor Jerry was in, would not feel compassion for him, and bless his deliverers? He that is without such compassion, let him be first to cast a stone at me. And it is also objected to your nomination that the Democrats talk for it. They do: - and who of them would not also vote for it, had it been his own son instead of Jerry that I helped?

Oh were the religion of this land in fact as well as in name the religion of Christ, we should never hear a man reproached for his deeds of mercy! Oh had not slavery hardened the heart and brutified the spirit of this people, we should never bear it objected to a candidate for civil rule, that he pitied his brother when he saw him in the hands of kidnappers! In that better coming day, such candidate shall in no wise be able to commend himself more effectually than by saying in the words of a noble ancient civil ruler: "I was a father to the poor; and the cause which I knew not I searched out. And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth."

Another of the complaints which I have seen brought against your Convention is that even should it succeed in electing a Governor, he could do nothing for either of the two special objects of the Convention - the promotion of temperance and the protection of the fugitive slave. What, the Governor of the State able to do nothing for temperance! Then can no man. Then it is of course idle to make temperance an issue in any Election. Then we are in hopeless bondage to the reign of rum. Surely this objection to your Convention cannot have proceeded from any wise friend of temperance. Nothing could be better adapted to prepare the way for achieving rum nominations and their victory. And as to the alleged impotence of the Governor to protect the fugitive slave: - how disgraceful to our great State is the admission that the Marshal of the United States would prove too strong for the Governor and the forces that should come to his aid! I know indeed that as yet the Governor of no State has conquered the Marshal engaged in the infernal work of carrying back a brother or sister into the pit of slavery. But has ever the Governor of any State tried to do so ? Not one. All the Governors, where the case has come up, have shamefully acknowledged that there was law for the Marshal but none for the slave. Perhaps were I Governor, I too could not stop the Marshal from running off with his innocent prey. But to use the pregnant word of the brave American officer, I could "TRY": - and beyond a doubt, if politics bad not by that time eaten out all my manhood, I should "TRY."

I cannot close without expressing my confidence that you and your associates have in this use of my name had a far higher object than to make war upon the Parties. It is true that you have acted without their leave. But it is also true that your clear right to do so has been exercised in no belligerent nor defiant spirit. Nor can I close without expressing my confidence that your nomination is the offspring not of personal attachment, but of devotion to those principles, which shall live when you and I are forgotten. Hence I expect that you will drop my name, should any one of the Parties nominate for Governor a man on whom you can rely for such services as you are seeking at my hands. And you are by no means to despair of their doing so. The Temperance Convention may do so. So may the Republican Convention. Possibly the Native American also. Which ever shall do so shall not lack our cordial co-operation. The Parties may be restrained by foolish pride from concurring in your nomination. But nothing of that will restrain you from concurring in theirs. A partizan rather than not gratify his party spirit might consent to see the cause of freedom and the cause of temperance both perish. But as your first and last object in this movement is the promotion of these causes, so your votes are ready for any man of any party whose election will be most like to serve this object most efficiently.

Respectfully yours,

GERRIT SMITH.