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362 DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. November, 1860 [[line]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] Messrs. Douglass and Foster spoke in answer to Mr. Howland--Mr. Foster defending his position as a non-resistant. EVENING SESSION. In the evening, on motion of Mr. Foster, the resolutions in favor of an Anti-Slavery Educational Society were adopted. Mr. Foster moved the adoption of the platform, and the formation of an Executive Committee to make nominations, and call another Convention, if they shall see fit. Messrs. Foster and Douglass made addresses in favor of the motion. After Mr. Howland had criticised their remarks, Mr. Foster's motion was adopted. The Chairman of the Nominating Committee reported:-- For the Anti-Slavery Educational Society's Committee--S. S. Foster, J. H. Stephenson, of Boston, A. P. Brown, Frederick Douglass, J. H. Fowler. For Executive Committee--S. S. Foster, of Worcester; J. H. Stephenson, of Boston; A. P. Brown, of Worcester; Frederick Douglass of Rochester, N. Y.; J. H. Fowler, of Cambridge; Ernestine L. Rose, of New York; Elizabeth C. Stanton, John Pierpont. The Report was accepted, and the nominees elected. On motion of Mr. Douglass, the following resolution was adopted:-- Resolved, That the members of this Convention, called to consider the proposition to form a sound Abolition Political Party, extend their earnest sympathy and their hearty God-speed to the little band of faithful Abolitionists which has nominated Gerrit Smith as their candidate to be supported for the Presidency in the coming election. After remarks by Mr. Douglass and Mr. Foster, the Convention adjourned, subject to the call of the Executive Committee. DANIEL MANN, President. WM. A. WILSON, Secretary. [[line]] [From the Principia.] [[bold]] DISCUSSION BETWEEN GERRIT SMITH AND WILLIAM GOODELLS [[/bold]] ----- GERRIT SMITH TO WILLIAM GOODELL. WM. GOODELL:--The review of me in your last number is long. Mine of it will be short. The Liberty Party Convention, held a fortnight ago in Syracuse, pout you and me in nomination. I shall vote for you, with all my heart. You give your reasons, some explicitly, and some hint-wise, why I am not fit to be voted for. These reasons are, 1st [[italics]] That I despair of the people's voting slavery to death. [[/italics]] It is true that for many years my expectations that this great evil would be thus peacefully ended, has been very slight. But has my desire that it should be, lost any of its strength? Or have I ever, even for one moment, turned away from this, the only proper mode of ending it, to any other? Have I not, during all these years, written three-fourths, or seven-eights, of all the Addresses and Resolutions adopted by our Abolition Political Conventions, and contributed three-fourths or seven-eights of all the moneys used to promote Abolition Political action? Did not the sum which I sent to the late Syracuse convention, bear this large proportion?--and was it not accompanied by my promise to co-operate with the Convention on any scale it might adopt? I should think that, instead of casting me off, because of my little hope that the people will, with their miserable religion, ever be brought to vote against slavery, you would honor me for still doing so much, whilst having so little hope. We are wont to honor the men who keep their hands perseveringly to their good work. But they who thus persevere, nothwithstanding their little hope of success, deserve especial commendation. And what if I should allow that my little hope in this direction is [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] wrong, as perhaps it is, nevertheless is not your inference from it that I have turned my back upon the great religious principles that underlie the anti-slavery cause, very illogical, as well as very uncharitable? I must think that this Reason No. One, has not had a large share in bringing you to the conclusion not to vote for me. For during all these years of my growing despondency, you have continued to vote for me, and to use your lips and pen to multiply votes for me. 2d. [[italics]] I am in favor of annexing Cuba and Mexico to this nation! [[/italics]] I own that I am, provided that the people on each side desire it. I do not say, provided the demagogues who play pranks in the name of the people, desire it. As you are aware, I mean by the people, the bond and free, the male and female. But neither to Reason No. Two is it owing that you decline voting for me. For during all those years that I have held to this conditional right of annexation, you have cast our vote for me, and called on other to do likewise. 3d. [[italics]] I am for making compensation to the emancipating slaveholders [[/italics]] I admit that, as far back as my first thoughts on the subject I have believed that, should the slaveholders emancipate, they would have a fair claim on the North--on their Northern partner, equally guilty with themselves--to make up a part of their present loss. I admit too, that the mass of the abolitionists have held me to be wrong in this belief, and that, here and there, a prominent abolitionist has, on account of it, called down the public contempt upon me. Nevertheless, I cannot think that reason No. Three, has exerted much influence in bringing you to your conclusion not to vote for me. For you have always known my views on this subject, expressed freely as they have been, both in and out of Congress, and yet your vote, with every other you could get, has always been given to me. 4th. [[italics]] I am for the disunion of the States. I am a 'disunion candidate.' [[/italics]] It is true that if North or South, East or West, will leave the Union, (which I do not apprehend,) I shall not be in favor of preventing it by bloodshed. I shall deprecate the sessions, and do what I can, morally and politically, to prevent it. But I shall not be in favor of raising armies against the seceders. Would you be? Would you be found with Senator Douglas at this point? I hope not. But if you would not, then wherein do we differ at this point of the disunion of the States? Nevertheless, however all this may be, it is not Reason No. Four that costs me the loss of your vote. For in spite of what I have said, both in and out of Congress, against shedding blood to preserve the Union, your vote, and your influence on other's votes, have been for me. 5th. [[italics]] I propose to use our Abolition Conventions and facilities toward establishing a religion contrary to the religion of the Bible. [[/italics]] I can only say that the religion of the Bible is that which (with very poor success I admit,) I try to make my own religion. But what is your authority for charging me with this purpose? You find it in the following paragraph of my letter to the Syracuse Convention--the letter which you have now been criticising. 'We do not need to employ presses and lecturers to convince the people that slavery and the dramshop are among the greatest crimes and abominations. The people are already saturated with this convention. But we do not need to employ them to teach the people the true religion--the simple religion of reason, common sense, and Jesus Christ. Had they this religion, they would be drawn to rational and righteous voting as naturally and necessarily as the needle is drawn to the pole'. What I mean by 'rational and righteous voting,' is explained in the following paragraph from the same letter: 'I trust that your Convention will make a National ticket, and also a New York State [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] ticket. Not that I suppose either will get many votes. But that I warmly desire that the handful who wish to vote in accordance with the claims of absolute rectitude, of justice and mercy, may have the needed facilities for doing so. A man is made better and stronger, by voting in the way his pure conscience bids him vote; and happy is the influence of his example on those who see him so vote.' Here we have all there is in Reason No. Five. Surely, surely then, you must be deceived if you believe that this Reason had much weight in turning you away from my nomination. No; it is not any, nor all of these five Reasons that have brought you to decide not to vote for one you have so often voted for, and to warn others not to vote for him. The one Reason, as his Review so plainly shows, which has wrought this great chance in my old and dear friend, is, that he has, at least, lost all patience with what he regards as my religion. For years, he has had but little patience with it. He has not none at all.--Let me say, by the way, that badly as you think of my religion, I still think well of your's. Your's is the true religion--for it has made you a just man. Would that all men had it. Would that in respect to your religion, I were myself far more like you. It is true that certain doctrines, or speculations, which you regard as essential parts of your religion, are in my eye, no part of it. And just here, is all the difference between us, that has led you to withhold your vote from me, and to persuade others to do likewise. And so the Liberty party must divide again! And Orthodoxy must be the dividing line! This was one of the seams at which our old Abolition Party tell asunder. But it had never occurred to me until recently, that our Little Party was in this danger! I say until recently for I was informed that some of the Orthodox members of the late Syracuse Convention, were strenuously opposed to my nomination. Very sad, and deeply mortified am I at this new division of the handful of voting abolitionists, and at these new demands of orthodoxy. Smaller than ever, is now my hope that American slavery will be voted to death. Nevertheless I shall continue to vote to that end, and to talk and write and give money to that end. Moreover, if my hope of the peaceful termination of slavery should quite expire, I shall not, even then, think it right in you to hold me up as having abandoned political action for the salve, and as having run after expedients to supply the place of such action. Such action is the highest duty of the American people. God commands it; and He will accept nothing in the place of it. Allow me, in closing my too hasty communication, to correct a few of your errors. 1st. When speaking in my letter of 'Church and Government,' I used both words in a general and comprehensive sense. Had I referred to local Churches, I would at least have remembered that 'the Church at Peterboro' is an abolition church. 2d. You think I wrote a part of the Resolutions adopted by the Syracuse Convention. I wrote none of them, and knew nothing of any of them until after the Convention. 3d. I did not mean that Dr. Cheever had changed his personal religion--for I did not know that he had. I meant by 'his religion,' (and I ought to have expressed myself more clearly,) the current religion. This he has 'outgrown,'--and an emphatically good and great man is he. By the way, you pass but a sorry compliment on his Church, and on its creed, and on the Bible, when you represent his church as still 'needing to study its Bible and its church creed,' in order to learn its duty of not voting for slave-catchers and dramshop candidates. You think that men need to go to the Bible to learn this duty. On the contrary, I love God because He has given us so high a being, that we need not look into any book to learn this duty. You think that Dr. Cheever's Church has the true religion. I think they have not. No men have it who vote for slave-catching and dramshop candi [[/column 3]]
