I wish the convention would go with me in voting slavery to
death. But I tell you, gentlemen, with all my heart, that if the convention is
not ready to go with me in voting slavery to death, I am ready to go with it in
putting slavery to a violent death. . . Concluding that your convention will
decide to fight rather than to vote against slavery, I hope it will originate a
movement as broad as our whole State, and taxing the courage, energy and
liberality of every part of the State. I hope to hear that it has adopted
measures to raise one million of dollars and one thousand men. I will not doubt
that both can be readily obtained. If they cannot be, then are the people of
New York so degenerate and abject as to invite the yoke of slavery on their own
necks.
A word in regard to the thousand men. They should not be
whiskey drinkers, nor profane swearers. They should have the purity and zeal of
Cromwell's armies, and, therefore, would they have the invincibility of those
armies.
For myself, I am too old, and too ignorant of arms, to
fight. I scarcely know how to load a gun, and I am not certain that I ever saw
a Sharpe's rifle, or a revolver, or a bowie knife. I could not have encouraged
others to fight, had not slavery invaded the free State of Kansas. Which of the
Free States it will next seek to conquer, I cannot conjecture. Hitherto I have
opposed the bloody abolition of slavery. But now, when it begins to march its
conquering bands into the Free States, I and ten thousand other peace men are
not only ready to have it repulsed with violence, but pursued even unto death,
with violence. Remember, however, that antislavery voting — real, not sham
anti-slavery voting — would have prevented all need of this.
I said that I am unfit to fight. Nevertheless I can do something
for the good cause. Some can give to it brave hearts and strong arms, and
military skill; others can give to it the power of prayer with Him who shall
break in pieces the oppressor; and others can give money to it, — the cheapest
indeed, and least meritorious of all the gifts — nevertheless indispensable. I
am among those who can help the cause with this poorest of gifts. It is true
that my very frequent contributions during the past year in aid of our
suffering people in Kansas, have exhausted my current means. Nevertheless, I
authorize you to put me down for ten thousand dollars of the million.
SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith:
A Biography, p. 232-3 which states this letter was published in the in the Syracuse Daily Journal, Syracuse, New York, May 31, 1856.
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