Bedford, November 9, 1852.
My Dear Sir — Rarely have I been so delightfully
astonished as by the intelligence of your election. What a rebuke of the vile
pledge given by the Baltimore convention to resist all anti-slavery discussions
in Congress or out of it, wherever, whenever, however, and under whatever shape
or color it may be attempted! What a scorn is it on the atrocious effort of
Fillmore and his Cabinet to convict of the capital crime of levying war against
the United States, a peaceful, conscientious man, merely because he refused to
aid in the villainy of catching slaves, that
you, an undoubted traitor according to Webster's
exposition of the constitution, should be sent, not to the gallows, but to
Congress!
How must our Cotton Parsons mourn over the irreligion of
Madison and Oswego, represented in the councils of the nation by a man who
openly avows a higher law than the constitution, and who preaches that
obedience to an accursed Act of Congress is rebellion against God!
You and I, my dear sir, very honestly differ in opinion on
some points, but we cordially agree as to the diabolism of American slavery and
the fugitive slave act; and most sincerely do I rejoice in your election.
May the blessings of the Almighty rest upon you, and may He
give you wisdom from on high, to direct you in the discharge of your new duties;
and may he deliver you from that fear of man which is at once the snare and the
curse of almost all our public men.
Your friend,
William Jay.
SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith:
A Biography, p. 214
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