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November, 1860.     DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.   363
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dates. What a fact! Wm. Goodell casting off his old fellow laborer Gerrit Smith, and praising and numbering on the side of Freedom, Doctor Cheever's pro-slavery voting Church! Oh, Orthodoxy, how bewildering and misleading is thy power, even over the wisest and the best of men!  Your friend,
September 15, 1860.  GERRIT SMITH.
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WILLIAM GOODELL TO GERRIT SMITH.
MY DEAR SIR:--You commence yours, by promising to be short. I can only promise to be as short as my work will permit. You have pointed out some mistakes of mine. I shall have to point out some of yours.

One of the first things that strikes me, by promising to be short. I can only promise to be as short as my work will permit. You have pointed out some mistakes of mine. I shall have to point out some of yours.

One of the first things that strikes me, on perusal of your's, is your [[italics]] seeming [[/italics]] effort to make out that all my reasons, for the conclusions to which I arrive, are but ostensible and not real ones. If this be your meaning, you have made a mistake, as I shall show you.

You take up several of those reasons in course. 'Reason No. one,' you think, had little influence with me. 'Reason No. two,' could not have been the true reason. 'Reason No. Three,' you put with 'No. 1,' as having had little influence with me. It 'is not reason No. four,' you say, 'that cost me, (you) the loss of your (my) vote.' And surely I must be deceived, you say, if I think that 'Reason No. five' had much weight with me. And finally, you say, 'It is [[italics]] not any, nor all [[/italics]] of these reasons' that have determined me. So you shut me up, in your own imagination, to 'the [[italics]] one [[/italics]] reason,' which, as you very incorrectly sate it, is, that I have 'lost all patience with you, as regards your religion.'

You are mistaken. Every one of the reasons that I either stated explicitly, or hinted at, had weight, and great and burdensome weight with me. I never gave either of them, (nor could I truthfully) as [[italics]] the [[/italics]] reason. But each of them was [[italics]] a [[/italics]] reason. The aggregate weight of them--some of them long borne--at length determined me. You will recollect that, as the old proverb hath it--'It was the last pound o feathers that broke the camel's back.' Several previous burdens had been heavy, but it was [[italics]] that [[/italics]] that necessitated the break-down. In the present case, there is no occasion, if I were able to tell, as I am not, which of the several burdens was the heaviest. I only know they grew heavier, and heavier, to the last. A weight, long carried, grows heavier, the longer it is carried, even if no addition at all be made to it. I know I deliberated with myself and friends, whether I could hold out longer, before the last weight was added. I know too, that several, (including some to whom your sixth, or final ' [[italics]] one reason [[/italics]],' could, I think, have occasioned no burden at all, but the reverse,) gave up, and ceased to help carry the load, before I did. Did you never, in your multiplied relations with men, find yourself in a similar position, and finally conclude to relieve yourself of what you had long and painfully borne?

But lest you should misunderstand me, just here, let me digress a moment, to correct [[italics]] another [[/italics]] of your mistakes, before I can complete the correction of this. You speak of me as 'casting' you' off" and again, as 'castin goff' my 'old fellow laborer, Gerrit Smith.' And you think 'a great change is wrought in your dear old friend,' and that he has 'lost all patience' with you. Be assured, my 'dear old friend,' that this is all a mistake.  I have not the slightest notion of 'casting you off' any more than you and I had at a nominating convention, at Syracuse, once, when we were both agreed in opposing (pretty strenuously on your part) the nomination for the Governorship of this State, of our 'dear old friend, and fellow laborer,' Alvan Stewart, than whom, a truer man I never knew, a man who, as endowed with some of nature's rarest gifts, and as replenished with some of the choicest treasures of acquired knowledge, neither of us could have expected to find, in the State, his equal. We judged, (at least I did,) that the very richness of his acquisitions, is certain directions, the [[?]] of his wit, the peculiarities of his [[?]], the mighty impulses that moved him at times, transforming him into a [[/column 1]]

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thinking, speaking, walking Vesuvius, among his fellows, transfixing one, with the shafts of his wits here, and petrifying another with is thunderbolts there, the very fact of his splendid genius, with the eccentricities and peculiarities that were givento him along with it, disqualified, rather than qualified him for [[italics]] that particular post [[/italics]], requiring, as it did, an equal balance, a steadiness of administration, a soundness of judgment, that could better be found among less highly gifted, less splendid, less powerful men. We hardly dared to trust our Samson among our pillars of State, lest he should pull them down over our heads, and over his own. What a contrast was he to William Jay, who was your choice for that position, and to James G. Birney, whom we had nominated for President!

It was as our candidate for Governor, that you and I opposed Alvan Stewart. It is as my candidate for President of the United States, that I have declined supporting Gerrit Smith. I have not cast him off, as a model man of wealth, as world wide philanthropist, as an eloquent orator and writer, as one of nature's noblemen, an honest and earnest reformer, a radical abolitionist, a temperance teetotaller, a liquor prohibitionist, a benefactor and friend of the poor, a hater of monopolies, an advocate of equal rights, and what shall I say more? Assuredly I had not cast him off as a beloved and honored friend. Nor must I be understood to imply that the peculiar disqualifications of Alvan Stewart are those of Gerrit Smith. I only mean that, in both cases, the highest gifts of genius failed to secure the precise qualifications needed [[italics]] for certain particular posts [[/italics]]--qualifications abundantly possessed my men, inferior in other respects.

What I have said of the heavy burdens I have borne, in supporting Gerrit Smith, having sole reference to supporting him as a candidate for office--nothing more.

With politicians, like the late Henry Clay, it is common to speak of desertion of [[italics]] friends [[/italics]], whenever [[italics]] votes [[/italics]] are withheld.  I trust it will not be so among abolitionists. You and I, Gerrit Smith, do not value friendship as means of securing votes. Perhaps it might have been so, with us, had we been subjected to like temptations with Henry Clay. As it is, we shall not limit our friendships to those who vote for us, nor consider it a [[italics]] cutting off [[/italics]] of friendships when votes are withheld. You say you intend to vote for me. I thank you. But do not, I beseech you, do so, if you can find, as I should think you easily might, a person better qualified for the post than I am. Your not voting for me will occasion no interruption of our mutual friendship. I shall not think that you are 'casting me off,' or 'losing patience,' with me, or my 'othodoxy,' if you do so. Among the thousands of abolitionists that you and I are more or less acquainted with, there are very few that we ever voted for you, and asked others do so.

Well: so far as the alleged facts are concerned, I confess you have me on the hip, and there is no escape for me. I have thus voted, and have asked others to vote. To this charge, if it be one, or if it be a [[italics]] verification [[/italics]] of a charge, I must plead guilty, and throw myself on the mercy of the court. But before sentence of condemnation for want of frankness or truthfulness sin adducing my 'Reasons No. one, two, three, four, and five,' is pronounced against me, I must beg leave to scrutinize the logic by which the inference of my lack of frankness, &c., is drawn from the [[?]]--the facts of the case. And even if the inferences be found legitimate, I shall claim a consideration of the [[?]] circumstances, that may move to mitigate the se- [[/column 2]]

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verity of the sentence to be pronounced against me.

First, the, as to the inferences. Because I [[italics]] once [[/italics]] voted for you, must I perpetually [[italics]] continue [[/italics]] to do so, or forfeit my claim to sincerity, in giving my reasons for not continuing thus to vote?

It if [[italics]] were [[/italics]] so, that certain objections which I [[italics]] now [[/italics]] see, against voting for you, did not formerly appear to me to be objections at all, does [[italics]] that [[/italics]] prove that they do not [[italics]] now [[/italics]] appear to me strong, and even insuperable objections?

Suppose it were so, that your words of discouragement and despondency, did not, much, if at all, trouble me at first, can you not conceive it possible, that, after the lapse of years, I may have seen so much of the petrifying effects upon our ranks, and that the constant repetition of them, and of the jeering and triumphant echoes of them in the pro-slavery journals, (as it is, at this moment,) may have become distressing and annoying to me, and to many others? And might it not be possible that, at least, I may have honestly come to the conclusion that I must have a more hopeful candidate, or none at all. Is the truthful declaration of this reason of non-concurrence with the nominating convention to be impugued, because experience has enabled me, as I may think, to be wiser today, than I was yesterday?

The truth is, that, in addition to what I have indicated above, I have all along, cherished fond hopes that my much admired and honored friend, would one day, in the enjoyment of better health, and of more comprehensive conceptions of Divine Providence, and of the precious promises and predictions of god's word, get the better of his despondency.--But since I find that it is, as he confesses, a [[italics]] 'growing [[/italics]] despondency,' I conclude that it is unwise for me to continue voting for him longer. I do not see how this discredits the reality of my objections nor why it should excite suspicion that something else is my only true reason.

Suppose it were true that, at the first, I was well pleased with your proposal to annex Cuba and Mexico--to offer 'compensation' to slaveholders, for the emancipation of their slaves--to permit, in certain contingencies, the withdrawal of the slave States from the Union, without emancipating their slaves--is it incredible that I may have changed my mind? If I have, may I not say so? May I not give it as a reason why I decline voting for you? Or is it the [[italics]] verity [[/italics]] of my alleged reason to be discredited, because I formerly voted for you, without making any such objections?

You will see, my dear sir, how utterly illogical would be such inferences from the premises, furnished by the fact that I have heretofore voted for you, and from the supposed fact that I was formerly agreed with you, in those particulars.

Suppose then, again, (as is the fact) that I have voted for you heretofore, notwithstanding these disagreements between our views, is it incredible that these differences may appear far more important and vital in my view, now, than they formerly did? With my attention much engrossed in the study of the various phases of the anti-slavery enterprise, with new and clearer developments continually opening upon me, in the movements, discussions and events constantly passing in review before me, and with no personal business to divert or to divide my attention,--in the new circumstances or exigencies into which the cause is constantly coming, may I not see, or think I see, far greater necessity for concentrating all our energies on the [[italics]] one great issue [[/italics]] of NATIONAL ABOLITION, standing sternly aloof from, and discountenaning all [italics]] side [[/italics]] issues, all contingent and hypothetical proposals or measures, whether about annexing foreign provinces, offering compensation, dividing the Union, or what not, and therefore, of insisting upon adhering to a platform, and selecting a candidate in harmony with these views? When you and I, Gerrit Smith, voted for Birney in 1840 and 1844, it was on a platform of measures what we would neither of us vote for [[/column 3]]