To the Voters of the Counties of Oswego and Madison:
YoU nominated
me for a seat in Congress, notwithstanding I besought you not to do so. In vain
was my resistance to your persevering and unrelenting purpose.
I had reached old age. I had never held office. Nothing was
more foreign to my expectations, and nothing was more foreign to my wishes,
than the holding of office. My multiplied and extensive affairs gave me full
employment. My habits, all formed in private life, all shrank from public life.
My plans of usefulness and happiness could be carried out only in the
seclusion, in which my years had been spent.
My nomination, as I supposed it would, has resulted in my
election — and, that too, by a very large majority. And, now, I wish, that I
could resign the office, which your partiality has accorded to me. But, I must
not — I cannot. To resign it would be a most ungrateful and offensive requital
of the rare generosity, which broke through your strong attachments to party,
and bestowed your votes on one, the peculiarities of whose political creed
leave him without a party. Very rare, indeed, is the generosity, which was not
to be repelled by a political creed, among the peculiarities of which are:
1st. That it acknowledges no law, and knows no law, for
slavery:—that, not only, is slavery not in the Federal Constitution, but that,
by no possibility, could it be brought either into the Federal, or into a
State, Constitution.
2d. That the right to the soil is as natural, absolute,
and equal, as the right to the light and the air.
3d. That political rights are not conventional, but
natural — inhering in all persons, the black as well as the white, the female
as well as the male.
4th. That the doctrine of Free Trade is the necessary
outgrowth of the doctrine of the human brotherhood: and that to impose
restrictions on commerce is to build up unnatural and sinful barriers across
that brotherhood.
5th. That national wars are as brutal, barbarous, and
unnecessary, as are the violence and bloodshed, to which misguided and frenzied
individuals are prompted: and that our country should, by her own
Heaven-trusting and beautiful example, hasten the day, when the nations of the
earth “shall beat their swords
into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up
sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
6th. That the province of Government is but to protect — to
protect persons and property; and that the building of railroads and canals and
the care of schools and churches fall entirely outside of its limits, and exclusively
within the range of “the
voluntary principle.” Narrow, however, as are these limits, every duty
within them is to be promptly, faithfully, fully performed: — as well, for
instance, the duty on the part of the Federal Government to put an end to the
dramshop manufacture of paupers and madmen in the City of Washington, as the
duty on the part of the State Government to put an end to it in the State.
7th. That, as far as practicable, every officer, from the
highest to the lowest, including especially the President and Postmaster,
should be elected directly by the people.
I need not extend any further the enumeration of the
features of my peculiar political creed: — and I need not enlarge upon the
reason, which I gave, why I must not, and can not, resign the office, which you
have conferred upon me. I will only add, that I accept it; that my whole heart
is moved to gratitude by your bestowment of it; and that, God helping me, I
will so discharge its duties, as neither to dishonor myself, nor' you.
GERRIT SMITH.
PETERBORO, November 5th, 1852.
SOURCE: Gerrit Smith, Speeches
of Gerrit Smith in Congress, p. 9-11
No comments:
Post a Comment