Lot 182

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Abolitionist Gerrit Smith Slavery Letter to Spooner Who Wrote “Unconstitutionality of Slavery” Mentions Buchanan too.
Abolitionist Gerrit Smith Slavery Letter to Spooner Who Wrote “Unconstitutionality of Slavery” Mentions Buchanan too.
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Abolitionist Gerrit Smith Slavery Letter to Spooner Who Wrote “Unconstitutionality of Slavery” Mentions Buchanan too

In this letter to Lysander Spooner, abolitionist Gerrit Smith responds to a lengthy letter from Spooner and highlights seven things he wanted to make clear before ending his correspondence with him. Spooner had complained that Smith had appropriated his arguments against slavery for his campaign as the Liberty Party's candidate for president in 1848.

[ABOLITIONISM.] Gerrit Smith, Autograph Letter Signed, to Lysander Spooner, July 20, 1849, Peterboro, [New York]. 2 pp., 7.875" x 9.875". Expected folds; very good.

Complete Transcript
Peterboro July 20 1849
Lysander Spooner
Dr Sir,
I have your letter of 17th inst. I fully agree with the intimation, at the close of it, that it is time our correspondence had closed. Our views of propriety are quite too opposite toward others to allow of a pleasant epistolary intercourse between us.
There are a few things, however, which I ought to hint at, in taking my leave of you.
1st I should have thought you would have found it a more justified employment to recite the kindness than to recite the wrongs I had done you.
2d There may be great folly in my undertaking to supply the poor with houses, but I thought you would be more tender to my feelings than (in a letter to me) to sneer at that understanding, & to put upon it an aspect of revolting cruelty.
3d It is true that I have, for many years, employed various & somewhat mutually conflicting arguments against the Constitutionality of slavery. I cannot think this an unwarrantable liberty. I cannot recognize your exclusive right to make arguments on this subject. I am the enemy of all monopolies.
4th W.L. Chaplin is the Agent of the Vigilance Committee. I rarely see him. I well remember that when he was at my house last year, I urged upon him the importance of having you employed in some of our slave cases. I did this, both because I was your friend, & because I appreciated your great power in a law-argument. I cannot see why I am your debtor in this matter—least of all, if it be true, that I do more towards keeping that Committee in funds than do all other persons put together.
5th I cannot see that my letter to Mr. Buchanan, from which you quote, laid me under any pecuniary or other obligations to you.
6th It may be true, as you say, that you have "furnished the abolitionists with nearly all the ideas of any value, that they have had, for some years," nevertheless, I cannot see, that you have the right to curtail us of the liberty to speak out for ourselves, in our own small way, independently of your leave or dictation.
7th The day after the last Liberty Part State Convention in Cazenovia, I engaged copies of your Argument against the Constitutionality of slavery sufficient to supply all the lawyers in this County. Mr Wm P Green agreed to furnish them to me. I shall be happy to have this able argument in the hands of every lawyer in the land. But, from what has recently passed between us, I shall, of course, take less pleasure than heretofore in circulating your publications.
Respectfully, your friend,
Gerrit Smith

Historical Background
In 1845, Spooner published The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, which contributed to the controversy among abolitionists over whether the Constitution supported slavery. William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips argued that the Constitution legally recognized and supported slavery through provisions like the Fugitive Slave clause in Article IV. Spooner disagreed that the text of the Constitution permitted slavery. He insisted that only the meaning of the text, and not the intentions of its writers, was relevant and enforceable. When Phillips responded to Spooner's argument in 1847, Spooner replied with Part Second (1847), which was published together with the first part under the same title.

Gerrit Smith and the Liberty Party adopted Spooner's arguments, and Frederick Douglass cited his work as an influence in changing his mind from being an anti-Constitutional Garrisonian to a pro-Constitution abolitionist. In the late 1850s, copies of the book were distributed to members of Congress, and proslavery Senator Albert G. Brown of Mississippi admitted it was the most impressive legal challenge to slavery from the abolitionists.

Smith had written Spooner a letter on July 9, 1849, and Spooner responded on July 17 with a sixteen-page letter because both the tone and contents of Smith's letter "demand an answer from me." In one part of the letter, Spooner asserted that Smith had made an "untenable" argument against the constitutionality of slavery. "I complained of this as one of the acts," Spooner continued, "by which the sale of my argument had been destroyed, and my resources for the completion of my argument cut off, and I mentioned, as an aggravation of the injustice, that the argument, which you had thus procured to be indorsed at my expense, was, (in my judgment of course), certainly untenable."

Spooner mentioned in his letter that in the summer of 1848, William L. Chaplin (1796-1871), an agent of the Vigilance Committee that provided funding for purchasing enslaved African Americans and rescuing fugitive slaves, had written him regarding the case of two girls in Baltimore. Writing at the request of Smith, or so Spooner believed, Chaplin had asked him what the best mode was to proceed in the case and requested that Spooner come to Boston to meet him on the matter. However, "nothing was sent to pay my expenses; I was unable to pay them; and did not go."

Spooner repeatedly mentioned in his letter of July 17 that Smith had never paid him for his opinions on slavery and that "Now, however much pleasure it would ordinarily give me to do you a ‘great favor' of any kind, it so happens that I was not in such pecuniary circumstances as to justify me in doing ‘great favors,' of a professional nature, without pay, for a man of your wealth...." He complained that Smith refused to loan him $200, although Spooner admitted that Smith paid his share of the "(general) indebtedness," though it was "of no avail to me." It appears that Smith gave Spooner money for his role in reducing the cost of postage charged by the U.S. postal service.

Spooner went on, "Sir, it does seem to me a little illiberal, that a man, who professes to have received, from my labors, so much personal gratification and instruction, and so much aid and light in regard to the objects to which he is devoting so much time and money...should now insist upon considering me a perfect stranger, when I ask a favor of him, and at the same moment a very particular friend if he ask a favor of me." Spooner assured Smith that "a man in my circumstances could not afford to give legal opinions gratuitously for the gratification of his friends" though he had "never before asked anyone a cent for an opinion on the subject of slavery."

Spooner concluded, "I am thankful that you have at length proposed to give my argument to the bar. Had it been given to them three years ago, the whole country would at this time have been anticipating, if indeed it would not have already obtained, a judicial decision, declaring slavery unconstitutional. What will be the mind of the country on this point three years hence? As this may be the last of our correspondence, I wish to say, that I think you have more responsibility as to what answer shall be given to that question than any man living."

Gerrit Smith (1797-1874) was born in New York and graduated from Hamilton College in 1818. He managed his father's substantial estate in Peterboro, New York, and increased the family's fortune. In 1840, Smith helped organize the Liberty Party, an early advocate of the abolitionist cause. In 1848 and again in 1856 and 1860, he was the Liberty Party's candidate for President. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1853 to 1854 as a Free Soiler. As a philanthropist, he gave away more than $8 million, including land to indigent families, both black and white, and he contributed funds for the legal defense of persons accused of violating the Fugitive Slave Law. He became a leading supporter of the Kansas Aid Movement that aided anti-slavery settlers in relocating to that territory. Through these efforts, he first met and supported John Brown. In 1859, Smith joined the Secret Six, abolitionists who supported John Brown's plan to establish a haven for runaway slaves in the mountains of Virginia. Although he supported the Union in the Civil War, he urged a mild policy toward the defeated Confederate states. In 1867, he, together with Horace Greeley and Cornelius Vanderbilt, helped to fund the $100,000 bond necessary to free Jefferson Davis.

Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) was born in Massachusetts and studied law with various attorneys but never attended college. Massachusetts law required college graduates to study law for three years while non-graduates had to study for five years. After three years of study, Spooner set up a law practice in Worcester, viewing the requirement as state-sponsored discrimination against the poor. The legislature abolished the restriction in 1836. After failing at his legal career and as a land speculator in Ohio, Spooner returned to his father's farm in 1840. In 1844, he began the American Letter Mail Company to challenge the legal monopoly of the U.S. Post Office. The federal government challenged his business in court, and in 1851, Congress enacted a law strengthening the government's monopoly and putting Spooner's company out of business, but it did have the effect of reducing letter postage from 5¢ to 3¢. From the publication of his book The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in 1845 into the 1860s, Spooner campaigned against slavery and represented fugitive slaves in court. Although he supported the use of violence to abolish slavery and worked with John Brown, he denounced the use of violence by the Republican administration of Abraham Lincoln to prevent southern states from seceding and strongly opposed the Civil War. After the war, he wrote essays supporting anarchism and the doctrine of jury nullification.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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