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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
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He was born on March 6, 1797 at Utica, New York, United States, the grandson of James Livingston and the son of Elizabeth (Livingston) and Peter Smith. In 1806 the family moved to Peterboro, Madison County, New York, where Smith spent the greater part of his adult life.
He graduated from Hamilton College in 1818.
After studies he helped his father manage the substantial fortune, the product of shrewd land purchases. He succeeded to the entire control of his father's property, which, real and personal, was valued at about $400, 000, and was able to increase it in amount and in value.
Smith used his wealth, in so far as he could find guidance on the subject from prayer and from his own conscience, for what he considered the good of mankind. For a time he helped to build churches, and he gave generously to several theological schools and to various colleges. He experimented with systematic charity on a large scale, giving both land and money to needy men and women throughout his own state; but his carefully selected "indigent females" made poor farmers, and the blacks whom he tried to colonize in the Adirondack wilderness found the environment unsuited to their needs. Much of the property he disposed of in this work was subsequently sold for non-payment of taxes.
His greatest reputation was made in the field of reform. He labored in the cause of the Sunday School and of Sunday observance. He contributed to home and foreign missions and to the causes of the oppressed Greeks, the Italians, and the Irish. Through his influence his cousin, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was interested in temperance and abolition movements.
He was vicepresident of the American Peace Society and advocated compensated emancipation of slaves. He joined the anti-slavery crusade in 1835 with his customary enthusiasm. Although on terms of intimate friendship with William Lloyd Garrison, he never went to the extremes of the Garrison group; but he was always ready to help escaped slaves to Canada and in 1851 participated in the "Jerry rescue" in Syracuse.
After the enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska law he joined the Kansas Aid Societies in New York. In February 1858 John Brown went to Smith's home in Peterboro, not to plan his campaign in Virginia but to obtain Smith's moral and financial support for plans already made. On this occasion, at a second visit in April 1859, and in several letters, Smith gave Brown assurance of his approval and some money.
After the raid at Harpers Ferry, Smith became temporarily insane. He made a quick recovery, however, and six months later he was in his usual good health. From then on to the end of his life he denied complicity in Brown's plot, but the available evidence bears out newspaper charges made at the time, that he was an accessory before the fact. Unlike the Garrisonians, he believed in political action as a means of reform, and for a full fifty years, from 1824 to 1874, he took an active part in politics.
In 1840 he was its candidate for governor. In 1848 the "true" Liberty party men, those who refused to endorse the Free Soil "heresy, " nominated him for the presidency, though he declined. In 1852 he was elected a member of Congress on an independent ticket and served from March 4, 1853, to August 7, 1854, when he resigned. In 1858 he ran for governor on the "People's State Ticket, " advocating temperance, anti-slavery, and land reform.
During the Civil War he wrote and spoke often in support of the Union cause. This work led him gradually into the Republican party, so that he campaigned for Lincoln's reelection in 1864 and for Grant in 1868. In 1867 he was one of the signers of the bail bond to release Jefferson Davis from captivity.
He published many of his speeches and letters on important subjects. He died in New York City.
Gerrit Smith became one of the best-known abolitionists in the United States, he was a member of the Secret Six who financially supported John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. He also helped Eli Thayer's New England Emigrant Aid Company in Massachusetts, that cost him at least fourteen thousand dollars. He was one of the leaders in forming the Liberty party. His most famous published works: Religion of Reason (1864), Speeches of Gerrit Smith in Congress (1856), Speeches and Letters of Gerrit Smith on the Rebellion.
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
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( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
In 1826 he became a member of the Presbyterian Church. Believing that sectarianism was sinful, he separated from the Presbyterian Church in 1843. He was one of the founders of the Church at Peterboro, a non-sectarian institution open to all Christians of whatever denomination.
He joined the national dress reform association and the woman's suffrage cause; he believed in prison reform and in the abolition of capital punishment.
In spite of his advocacy of peace, he urged the use of force against the pro-slavery contingent in Kansas, and forcible resistance to the federal authorities there, because, as he said, the federal government upheld the pro-slavery cause.
In reconstruction he advocated a policy of moderation toward the Southern whites with suffrage for the blacks.
He was an anti-Mason; he advocated vegetarianism; and he opposed the use of tobacco and alcoholic beverages.
On January 11, 1819, he married Wealthy Ann Backus, the daughter of Azel Backus. She died the next August, and on January 3, 1822, he married Ann Carroll Fitzhugh. Of their four children, only two lived to maturity.
