The Liberator (newspaper)/September 18, 1857/Gerrit Smith Among His New Friends

From the Anti-Slavery Standard.

Gerrit Smith Among His New Friends.

It is instructive to observe the altered tone in which, since the ‘Compensated Emancipation’ Convention at Cleveland, a certain class of journals are accustomed to speak of Gerrit Smith. While they regarded him as an uncompromising Abolitionist, they could scarcely mention his name without coupling it with some epithet of disparagement. That he was a good man, they pretended not to doubt; but they thought him singularly deficient in the high qualities of statesmanship—in short, little better than a downright fanatic and reckless agitator. Since his appearance at Cleveland as a champion of the Compensation scheme, they have suddenly discovered that he is as profoundly wise as he is confessedly eloquent—in short, as different from the unreasoning, impracticable and fanatical Abolitionists as gold is from tin. Their delight in praising him is matched only by the pleasure they evidently feel in denouncing some of his old friends, who cannot follow him in the support of the Compensation plan. The Ravenna (O.) Democrat, whose editor, though a Republican, is an inveterate hater of genuine Abolitionism, distributes its praise and its censure in a manner which we must regard as peculiarly edifying:—

‘By what we see reported in the Cleveland Herald, and by what we hear from private sources, we conclude the Hon. Gerrit Smith embraced the opportunity offered him in the ‘Compensated Emancipation’ Convention at Cleveland to shake off from him the ultra and damaging leeches which have so long hung upon him.

‘He was assailed in the Convention by those whom his bounty has fed, his assailants speaking with much bitterness and coarseness against their kind patron, who has so long generously pensioned them upon his vast wealth. One of them, it is said, ‘made a long speech denunciatory of the principles of the Convention, and taxing Gerrit Smith with inconsistency,’ &c., &c.

‘Mr. Smith bore all this with his accustomed magnanimity and forbearance, but took occasion to indicate that henceforth his line of action lay in a different direction, and that he should cease to be complicated with the movements of men of such a spirit.

‘For instance, in alluding to his assailants on the floor of the Convention (a black man, Watkins, and a white man, Pryne), he said he knew not why he was selected to answer them, unless it was because he formerly acted with them no longer—thus significantly intimating that he acted with them no longer.

‘And again, he said: ‘The speakers [his assailants] had been associates with him in anti-slavery movements up to this point, where, unfortunately, their paths diverged.’ A pretty distinct shaking off of the noisy and clamorous pretenders who have gained all the consequence they enjoy under the guise of reflecting his views. But great injustice and injury, we are satisfied, has been done to Mr. Smith by supposing that such irresponsible declaimers reflected his true sentiments; and Mr. Smith very properly, and very much to the gratification of his old admirers, has taken the first convenient opportunity to disabuse the public mind, and to place himself right in regard to those who have been falsely sailing under his flag, thus gaining a consideration which their own merits never would have given them.’

The Cleveland Herald, another Republican paper of the compromising sort, while complimenting Mr. Smith, thus heaps abuse upon the men who had the courage to oppose his doctrine of compensation:

‘As we expected, the entire afternoon was consumed in frothy, incoherent harangues by a couple of demagogues, in which not a single reason was adduced why the system of ‘Compensated Emancipation’ was wrong. The first speaker—a colored brother (Watkins)—was fearful the ears had left him in consequence of his long speech, and the Convention heartily shared in the fear. The second speaker—a white man (Pryne)—inflicted a tedious, inflammatory and abusive speech on the Convention, of which the only tangible idea we could discover was, that the time for ‘retribution’ had come, and that, instead of money, the slaveholder should be presented with a musket-ball and the bowie-knife. The selfish character of the abolition speakers was shown in the fact that, although it was well known the large audience assembled were drawn together with the expectation of hearing Gerrit Smith, yet they persisted in forcing their nauseating harangues on their unwilling hearers. The colored speaker (Monroe) who followed, repudiated with scorn and contempt the abolition professions of friendship for the slave, and exposed their selfishness and duplicity. The Convention did well in promptly repudiating the principles of the ultra abolition speakers, and would have done still better had it refused them the chance of wasting so much precious time.’

The abuse of these journals is far more endurable than their praise. Mr. Smith has certainly got the worst end of the load. If he had gone to Cleveland as the champion of uncompromising Abolitionism, he would have been in no danger of winning panegyric from such sources. It is the step downward that commands the admiration of political compromisers and tricksters.

☞The citizens of Guyandotte, Yirginia, have held a meeting, and, ‘full of sound and fury,’ have resolved that Eli Thayer’s scheme of colonizing Virginia with enterprising white laborers is inimical to the ‘honor and rights of Virginia,’ and nothing but an abolition concern in disguise. The rampant and chivalric Guyandotians resolved that they would lynch the whole enterprise and all concerned, at the first opportunity. Having thus delivered their sentiments, they resumed their accustomed repose and indolence.