Syracuse University Library
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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Our first duty is to keep down the democracy.

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 584

OUR FIRST DUTY IS TO KEEP DOWN THE DEMOCRACY.

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I am asked by one and another whether I am in favor of a third term for General Grant. My invariable answer is that I am in favor of any thing and every thing, which will serve to keep the Democratic Party out of power. If his re-nomination is essential to this end, then by all means let it come - yes, and come as often as there shall be the like occasion for it. Better any thing, better every thing, than the ruin that would befall our country from the ascendency of the Party, which sympathized with the rebels in the late Rebellion and with their malignant purpose to perpetuate slavery; and which still cherishes its traditional hatred of the black man. The slaughter of the innocent still going on at the South is due to this hatred, as was all Ku-Kluxism, as was the negro-murdering mob of 1863 in New York, and as was every one of the proslavery mobs that disgraced the North. Whether the outbreak against our colored brethren be at the North or at the South, the Democratic Party is its inspiration, its soul and sustenance. I do not forget that the Democratic Press, in its pictures of the present outrages at the South, presents the patient and long-suffering negro as the aggressor. Nor do I forget that the wolf held the innocent lamb to be guilty of roiling the stream.

In my eye democracy is all one with devilism. Of course, I mean not that genuine democracy, which Thomas Jefferson taught in his lessons for equal human rights. I mean the democracy of these degenerate days - the bastard democracy, which tramples upon these holy rights. Of course, too, I do not include in my denunciation of the Democratic Party all who are in it. There are persons in it and yet net of it: - persons whose pure principles are at the widest contrast from the base policies of the Party. I do not, however, hold that these exceptional gentlemen are entirely blameless. Their good names, which uphold the bad Party, they should withdraw from it. Instead of allowing their influence to keep the loathsome thing above ground, they should be at work to bury it. Moreover, the good men in the Democratic Party are needed in other parties. They are needed in the Republican Party, which is still far short of what it should be. Called into being to play a conspicuous part in the lifting up of humanity, and with every providential advantage to that end, this Party has not yet fully learned that "a man's a man." Alas, that this lesson, which should ever be the first to be learned by every party both in church and state, should so seldom be learned, either early or late, by any party! We go blundering through life, because ignorant that everyman is our brother. It is from such ignorance that the Republican Party failed to pass the Civil Rights Bill. As a matter of course, the Bill had to encounter every Democratic vote in Congress. Nevertheless, the Republican Party was responsible for its failure. It is from such ignorance that Congress and Courts pry into constitutions and statutes for excuses to deny equal rights to the black man. No laws are to be studied to learn human rights. They are written on the brow and in the heart of every man, as be comes from the hand of his Maker. I did hope that the Republican Party would signalize itself above all political parties by boldly taking the ground that we are to accept as of equal rights all the men whom God presents to us, and to scout as trash and atheism all acts of legislatures and all judgments of courts, that are contrary to such equality. Every man is an atheist, who, whatever his pleas of human laws for it, and whether he be a legislator or a judge, goes into the Heaven-defying work of distinguishing the rights of one race of men from the rights of another. He is a traitor to humanity and heaven, who does not insist on the same terms of citizenship for all ; on the same laws for all; and on the same respect for all the rights of all.

I notice that the chief objection to the Civil Rights Bill is that it provides for bringing into the same school black and white children. The Bill, though it provides for this intermingling, does not require it. It does not require the State to establish a common school. It only requires that where it does establish one, none shall be shutout from it. Now, in this state of things there is an admirable opportunity for the play of the principle of voluntariness - a principle which, in my humble judgment, is infinitely preferable to State authority in the matter of education. Hence, in the States in question, let those whites, who are ashamed of God (for to be ashamed of His children is to be ashamed of Himself) be left to educate their children, and the blacks be left to do likewise. The blacks, aided by the benevolence of the North and by the benevolence of not a few noble white men at the South, and above all by the impartial God, would not fall behind the whites in this race of education. On the contrary, but a few years would pass away, ere the whites, ashamed of their mean and wicked exclusiveness, and made sensible that the blacks are their equals, would open the way for mixed schools. Let this satanic caste-spirit be left to die out in this way : - but let not the coming and more enlightened generations be mortified at finding it in the laws. Let not the laws of Georgia nor any other State be such as shall tell posterity that their ancestors were the poor, pitiful victims of prejudice and race-hatred.

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At another point scarcely less vital than the I have referred to the Republican Party is still far short of what it should be. The sole office of Civil Government is to protect person and property. But these are not protected where there is the dramshop. The sum of all other perils to person and property is less than those incurred from the dramshop. Nevertheless, Government is so unfaithful to its office, as to suffer the existence and endless multiplication of these manufactories of madmen, incendiaries and murderers. It was not to be expected that the Democratic Party would make war upon these manufactories. That Party is itself on the low moral plane of the dramshop, and looks there, more than in all other directions; for recruits. But we had the right to expect that a Party beginning its existence on ground so high as that from which the Republican Party started, and with all the inspirations of its professed justice and humanity, would have availed itself of its large majorities and control of the public sentiment to put an end to this infamous and infernal "retailing of liquors to be drunk upon the premises." We ask nothing at the hands of Government in the name of temperance - for we admit that Government is simply a brute force, which owes nothing to any moral reform. But in the name of protection we demand from it the suppression of the dramshop. Nor even this would we demand were not the evils of dramselling too great to be endured and too mighty to be removed by moral influence. It is only the protection that is indispensable and that we cannot have otherwise, which we call on Government for. Whatever else than dramselling is connected with and promotive of intemperance we will be able to get along with without calling for help on the Hercules of Government.

Why is it that a duty so plain as the shutting up of the dramshop has not been discharged by the Republican Party ? In the first place, it has feared that it would thereby reduce its popularity and its votes. It has lacked faith in its power to convert men to the right by its own example of the right. The handful of the abolitionists, by their persistency in the mighty right, succeeded in converting the nation. Truth fails of success only when its advocates fail to trust it. In the second place, the Republican Party has been confused and, embarrassed by the extravagant claims, which the great body of the temperance men make upon the Government. They claim that the Government shall take the cause of temperance in hand, remove all hindrances from, its way, and crown it with success. The lines, which so distinctly separate the coercion of Government from the liberties of the individual and the family, they would efface; and, instead of contenting themselves with the merely incidental but nevertheless all-sufficient aid of a faithfully-protective Government, they would also withdraw their cause from the realm of moral influences, as to leave it to be the direct interest and work of Government. As vain, however, as illegitimate would be all the working of Government for the cause of temperance. It is only outside of Government, and with all due acknowledgment of that individual freedom, which is never to be surrendered under any mistaken pleas for the good of the whole, that this sacred cause can be carried on to success. No sumptuary laws - no Governmental directions what the people shall or shall not eat and drink - will ever be allowed to override a free people's free choice.

All wise and good men long for the day, which shall witness entire discontinuance of the traffic in intoxicating drinks. But its coming, instead of being hastened, will be greatly retarded, by laws for the absolute prohibition of such traffic and by all political action for such laws. Hence as one, who, for very nearly fifty years, has hesitated at no expenditure of time or money in the cause of temperance, do I regret the organization of political parties for such abolition. And not less do I regret it because it favors the return of the Democratic Party to power - an event, which every man dreads inexpressibly, who has spent his life in fighting the devils of democracy and slavery.

The few thousand votes, which my worthy friend Hon. Myron H. Clark will receive will not help the cause of temperance - for since be goes for absolute prohibition instead of merely against the dramshop, he is on a wrong temperance track. Nevertheless though his vote will be small, yet since seven-eighths of it will come from Republicans, it may possibly be large enough to turn the scale in favor of the Democratic candidate. Such candidate may be a very worthy man - and yet his success, being a Democratic victory, would be a very great evil. I know not who will be the Republican candidate. He may be in himself quite unworthy of the nomination, and yet his success be important because a defeat of the Democratic Party. But the Republican candidate may be the eminent scholar, soldier and statesman who is our present unsurpassed Governor. It was he, who sounded our key-note in the late war, when he ordered the shooting on the spot of whoever dishonored our country's flag: and hence his re-election could not fail to bring joy to every loyal heart. Joy, too, would it bring to every friend of temperance who knows, as I know, that Governor Dig's heart and habits are both on the side of temperance.

I close with saying that I view as absurdities all "Local Option Laws" and "License Laws" and "Civil Damages Laws ": and that I would have every instance of drunkenness regarded as a voluntary and responsible insanity, and therefore to be punished severely.

PETERBORO, September 8, 1874

G.S.