Syracuse University Library
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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

To the friends of temperance and freedom in the state of New York.

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 515

To the Friends of Temperance and Freedom in the State of
New York

I have now visited the Northern and Southern, Eastern and Western parts of our State, and held Meetings in a majority of the Counties. Hence I am now better prepared than I was to answer certain inquiries, which are frequently made of me. They are substantially answered in what follows.

My first tours into the Counties afforded me evidence, as abundant as painful, that the causes of Temperance and Freedom were little better than dead. Most of the friends of these causes had gone into the Republican Party ; and had become so partyized, as to be far more concerned for their Party than for Temperance or Freedom. Of the many of them, who have told me that I was ruining the Republican Party, very few seemed to have any remaining interest in either Temperance or Freedom.

But the resuscitation of these causes has begun; and, I trust, that ere long they will appear in fuller life and greater vigor than ever.

I wish it were in my power to report to you the probability of the success of your candidate. But it is not. Mr. Morgan will probably draw enough votes from me to defeat me. The sham candidate for Temperance and Freedom will in this wise prevent the success of the real candidate. In other words, so many votes will be thrown away upon Edwin D. Morgan, as to leave little chance for the election of Gerrit Smith. I say thrown away - for surely no person, who knows what is passing in our State, can believe that Mr. Morgan is to be elected, or to come any where near being elected.

In spite of the frank admission of the New-York Tribune that "Prohibition and Republicanism are totally independent of each other"; that "the Republicans never adopted any Temperance Platform," but "distinctly and emphatically refused to make Liquor Prohibition a part of its platform,"deceiving politicians are nevertheless able to dupe ten thousand abolitionists and prohibitionists into the belief that the Republican Party and Mr. Morgan are intent on shutting up the dramshop and abolishing slavery.

We have seen what that Party is in respect to Prohibition. Does it sustain any better relation to Abolition? It does not, Does it propose to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia? Even the Free Soil Party with Mr. Van Buren at its head proposed that: - but the Republican Party does not. Does it propose to abolish the inter State traffic in human flesh? More than thirty years ago Daniel Webster and other conservative men held it to be Constitutional to do that. Nevertheless the Republican Party does not propose to do it. Does it propose the repeal of the infamous and infernal Fugitive Slave Act? It does not. Does it propose to enact a law promising protection to all the innocent in this State ? It does not. Eighteen months ago a Republican Legislature refused to enact it. It preferred to surrender to the kidnapper the prey he is in pursuit of. Well may the Tribune say also that the Republican Party "never adopted any Abolition Platform."

Now in all these particulars Mr. Morgan is manifestly in the fullest harmony with his Party. He, like it, does not propose to abolish or disturb any part of American slavery. He, like it, does not propose to prohibit the traffic in intoxicating drinks. Indeed, he was the only Senator who dodged the vote on the Prohibitory Bill - having been in his seat ten minutes before the vote, and being there again ten minutes after the vote. My authority for saying this will not be disputed.

How shameful in these circumstances are the deceptions which the Republican Party is practising! It has got into its hands the New York State Temperance Society - that poor contemptible thing which has for years been little else than a tail to the Republican kite - and the chief men in which are now busy with their lips and presses to persuade Temperance men that Mr. Morgan is a Temperance man and a Prohibitionist.

The Republican Party has also got hold of a few colored men, and is using them to promote Mr. Morgan's election. This is indeed the basest and cruellest of all its manoeuvres. Getting colored men to work for a Party, which refuses to say that colored men shall not be chased by the kidnapper ! - which refuses to say that colored men shall not be sent from this State into the hell of slavery! - which refuses to say that colored men shall not be classed with horses and hogs! What white men would work with a party, that poured such contempt on white men? Is it not enough, that our poor colored brethren are outraged and trampled under foot by others ? Must they be employed to sink themselves still lower than their enemies have sunk them? Must they be set to work to kill all their self-respect? What colored man will ever again be able to respect himself, after he shall have labored this Fall for the success of the Republican Party and Mr. Morgan ? And pray what is it that inclines a small part (it happily is but a small part) to vote with the Republican Party? It is the promise that this Party will extend universal suffrage to black men. Delusive promise! The people of this State will never repent of the wrong of excluding the black man from the ballot box until they shall have first repented of the infinitely greater wrong of leaving him to be the prey of the kidnapper.

I trust that you will not interpret me as saying that the Republican Party occupies any lower ground with respect to slavery and the dramshop than the other parties do. Its ground here is in common with theirs. The Republican Party is worse than the Democratic and Native American Parties only inasmuch as it is a stupendous hypocrite and utter humbug. Our special complaint of the Republican Party is that its demagogues are in the habit of stealing our flag, and by that means getting votes to which we alone are entitled; and which it is as unprincipled and impudent in them, as it would be in the Democratic and American Parties, to lay claim to. That there are more antislavery and temperance men in the Republican than in either of the other Parties I readily admit. But what avails all this, so long as they suffer pro-slavery and pro-rum demagogues to mould the policy and govern the action of the Party ?

I trust too that you will not interpret me as saying that Mr. Morgan's position in regard to slavery and the dramshop is worse than that of Mr. Parker or Mr. Burrows. The position of all three in this regard is essentially the same. Whilst I am happy to believe that they are all gentlemen of unblemished private life, I am sorry to be obliged to add that they are all equally and glaringly unfaithful to the claims of Freedom and Temperance and just civil government.

I said that my election is not probable. We are not however to despair of it. We are to hope and to labor for it unceasingly. Never was I farther from despairing of it; and never was I working harder for it. It is true that among the four can-

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didates my vote may be the least. It will indeed be an amazing triumph of truth, if it is not. For, standing as I do outside of party, I have the whole press and machinery of party against me. But it is also true that if Mr. Parker is not elected, I shall be. For whilst the men, who propose to vote for me, are restrained by a commanding moral principle from going over to any man, who is not for shutting up the dramshop and shutting out the kidnapper from our State, there is no moral principle to forbid the friends of Mr. Parker or Mr. Burrows or Mr. Morgan to vote for me.

In a word, if as circumstances are - Mr. Morgan's chance of election being desperate - Mr. Parker shall be elected, it will be because the Republicans prefer his election to mine. The Republicans will go to the polls not to elect Mr. Morgan, but to choose between Amasa J. Parker and Gerrit Smith.

I said that we are not to despair. Already have tens of thousands of Republicans come out of their Party to our standard ; and tens of thousands more will follow if their party leaders will only let them see the certain defeat of Mr. Morgan. Is it too much to hope for that they will get to see it? Can they credit much longer the cunning misrepresentations at this point of these deceiving leaders? Then again, are there not thousands of Native Americans who had rather our ticket would prevail than the Democratic? Let but the Republicans and Native Americans become convinced that neither Mr. Morgan nor Mr. Burrows can succeed, and the chance of my election is tenfold greater than even that of Mr. Parker.

Farewell until the Election. My work this week is in Tioga and surrounding Counties : next week in St. Lawrence, Franklin, Clinton and Essex: and the following week in Delaware and contiguous Counties. Be assured that nothing shall be lacking on my part to make the war we are waging against rum and slavery and party despotism an effective and triumphant one.

GERRIT SMITH.

PETERBORO, Oct. 10, 1858.