Gerrit Smith
Encyclopedia
Gerrit Smith was a leading United States
social reformer, abolitionist, politician
, and philanthropist
. Spouse to Ann Carroll Fitzhugh
, Smith was a candidate for President of the United States
in 1848, 1856, and 1860, but only served 18 months in the federal government—in Congress as a Free Soil Party
Representative
, in 1853–4.
Smith, a significant financial contributor to the Liberty Party and the Republican Party throughout his life, spent much time and money working towards social progress in the nineteenth century United States. Besides making substantial donations of both land and money to the African American community in North Elba, New York
, he was involved in the Temperance Movement and, later in life, the colonization movement. A staunch abolitionist, he was a member of the Secret Six
that financially supported John Brown's
raid at Harpers Ferry
, West Virginia
.
, Oneida County
, New York
, to Peter Gerrit Smith (1768–1837) and Elizabeth Livingston (1773–1818), daughter of Col.
James Livingston (1747–1832) of Schuylerville
, Saratoga County
, New York
, and Elizabeth Simpson (1750–1800). His grandfather, James Livingston, fought at the battles of Quebec
and Saratoga
during the American Revolution
and is credited with thwarting Benedict Arnold
's attempted treason by firing on the Vulture, the boat intended to carry Arnold and his British contact, Maj.
John André
, to safety. Smith's maternal aunt, Margaret Livingston, married Daniel Cady
of Johnstown, New York
. Their daughter, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
, a founder and leader of the women's suffrage movement, was Smith's first cousin. In fact, Elizabeth Cady met her future husband, Henry Stanton, himself an active abolitionist, at the Smith family home in Peterboro, New York
. Established in 1795, the town had been founded by and named for Gerrit Smith's father, Peter Smith, who built the family homestead there in 1804.
After graduating from Hamilton College in 1818, Smith took on the management of the vast estate of his father, a long-standing partner of John Jacob Astor
, and greatly increased the family fortune. In 1822, he married Ann Carroll Fitzhugh (1805–1879, sister of Henry Fitzhugh
), and they had two children: Elizabeth Smith (1822–1911) and Greene Smith (ca. 1841-1880).
About 1828 Smith became an active temperance
campaigner, and in his hometown of Peterboro, he built one of the first temperance hotels in the country. He became an abolitionist in 1835, after attending an anti-slavery
meeting in Utica
, New York, which had been broken up by a mob.
. In the same year, their presidential candidate James G. Birney
married Elizabeth Potts Fitzhugh, Smith's sister-in-law. In 1848, Smith was nominated for the Presidency
by the remnant of this organization that had not been absorbed by the Free Soil Party
. An "Industrial Congress" at Philadelphia also nominated him for the presidency in 1848, and the "Land Reformers" in 1856. In 1840
and again in 1858, he ran for Governor of New York
on an anti-slavery platform.
On June 2, 1848 in Rochester, New York
, Smith was nominated as the Liberty Party
's presidential candidate. At the National Liberty Convention, held June 14–15 in Buffalo, New York
, Smith gave a major address, including in his speech a demand for "universal suffrage in its broadest sense, females as well as males being entitled to vote." The delegates approved a passage in their address to the people of the United States addressing votes for women: "Neither here, nor in any other part of the world, is the right of suffrage allowed to extend beyond one of the sexes. This universal exclusion of woman... argues, conclusively, that, not as yet, is there one nation so far emerged from barbarism, and so far practically Christian, as to permit woman to rise up to the one level of the human family."
Smith, along with his friend and ally Lysander Spooner
, was one of the leading advocates of the United States Constitution
as an antislavery document, as opposed to abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
who believed it was to be condemned as a pro-slavery document. In 1852, Smith was elected to the United States House of Representatives
as a Free-Soiler
, and in his address he declared that all men have an equal right to the soil; that wars are brutal and unnecessary; that slavery could be sanctioned by no constitution, state or federal; that free trade is essential to human brotherhood; that women should have full political rights; that the Federal government and the states should prohibit the liquor traffic within their respective jurisdictions; and that government officers, so far as practicable, should be elected by direct vote of the people. At the end of the first session he resigned his seat, largely out of frustration concerning the seemingly imminent passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Smith, disillusioned by the apparent failure of electoral change, brought his political life quickly to a close. He emerged later, however, even more strongly radical than before.
, he gave numerous farms of 50 acres (200,000 m²) each to indigent families. In 1846, hoping to help black families become self-sufficient and to provide them with the property ownership needed to vote in New York, Smith attempted to colonize approximately 120000 acres (485.6 km²) of land in North Elba, New York, near Lake Placid
in Essex County
with free blacks. The difficulty of farming in the Adirondack
region, coupled with the settlers lack of experience in housebuilding and the bigotry of white neighbors, caused the experiment to fail.
Peterboro became a station on the Underground Railroad
, and, after 1850, Smith furnished money for the legal expenses of persons charged with infractions of the Fugitive Slave Law
. Smith became a leading figure in the Kansas Aid Movement, a campaign to raise money and show solidarity with anti-slavery immigrants to that territory. It was during this movement that he first met and financially supported John Brown
. He later became more closely acquainted with John Brown, to whom he sold a farm in North Elba, and from time to time supplied him with funds. In 1859, Smith joined the Secret Six
, a group of wealthy northern abolitionists, who supported Brown in his efforts to capture the armory at Harpers Ferry
, West Virginia
(then Virginia
) and arm the slaves. After the failed raid on Harpers Ferry, Senator Jefferson Davis
unsuccessfully attempted to have Smith accused, tried, and hanged along with Brown. Upset by the raid, its outcome, and aftermath, Smith suffered a mental breakdown, and for several weeks was confined to the state asylum
in Utica.
When the Chicago Tribune later claimed Smith had full knowledge of Brown's plan at Harper's Ferry, Smith sued the paper for libel, claiming that he lacked any such knowledge and thought only that Brown wanted guns so that slaves who ran away to join him might defend themselves against attackers. Smith's claim was countered by the Tribune, which produced an affidavit, signed by Brown's son, swearing that Smith had full knowledge of all the particulars of the plan, including the plan to instigate a slave uprising. In writing later of these events, Smith said, "That affair excited and shocked me, and a few weeks after I was taken to a lunatic asylum. From that day to this I have had but a hazy view of dear John Brown's great work. Indeed, some of my impressions of it have, as others have told me, been quite erroneous and even wild."
Smith was a major benefactor of New-York Central College, McGrawville
, a co-educational and racially integrated college in Cortland County.
Smith was in favor of the Civil War
, but at its close he advocated a mild policy toward the late Confederate states
, declaring that part of the guilt of slavery lay upon the North. In 1867, Smith, together with Horace Greeley
and Cornelius Vanderbilt
, helped to underwrite the $1,000,000 bond needed to free Jefferson Davis, who had, at that time, been imprisoned for nearly two years without being charged with any crime. In doing this, Smith incurred the resentment of Northern Radical Republican leaders.
Smith's passions extended to religion as well as politics. Believing that sectarianism
was sinful, he separated from the Presbyterian Church in 1843, and was one of the founders of the Church at Peterboro, a non-sectarian institution open to all Christians of whatever denomination.
His private benefactions were substantial; of his gifts he kept no record, but their value is said to have exceeded $8,000,000. Though a man of great wealth, his life was one of marked simplicity. He died in 1874 while visiting relatives in New York City
.
The Gerrit Smith Estate
, in Peterboro, New York, was declared a National Historic Landmark
in 2001.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
social reformer, abolitionist, politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
, and philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
. Spouse to Ann Carroll Fitzhugh
Ann Carroll Fitzhugh
Ann Carroll Fitzhugh was an American abolitionist, mother of Elizabeth Smith Miller, and the spouse to Gerrit Smith. Her older brother was Henry Fitzhugh. Ann Fitzhugh and Gerrit Smith’s Peterboro, New York home was a station on the Underground Railroad...
, Smith was a candidate for President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
in 1848, 1856, and 1860, but only served 18 months in the federal government—in Congress as a Free Soil Party
Free Soil Party
The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections. It was a third party and a single-issue party that largely appealed to and drew its greatest strength from New York State. The party leadership...
Representative
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
, in 1853–4.
Smith, a significant financial contributor to the Liberty Party and the Republican Party throughout his life, spent much time and money working towards social progress in the nineteenth century United States. Besides making substantial donations of both land and money to the African American community in North Elba, New York
North Elba, New York
North Elba is a town in Essex County, New York, United States. The population was 8,661 at the 2000 census. The town is named after the island of Elba.North Elba is on the western edge of the county...
, he was involved in the Temperance Movement and, later in life, the colonization movement. A staunch abolitionist, he was a member of the Secret Six
Secret Six
The Secret Six, or the Secret Committee of Six, were six wealthy and influential men who secretly funded the American abolitionist, John Brown. They were Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Samuel Gridley Howe, Theodore Parker, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Gerrit Smith, and George Luther Stearns...
that financially supported John Brown's
John Brown (abolitionist)
John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...
raid at Harpers Ferry
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States. In many books the town is called "Harper's Ferry" with an apostrophe....
, West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
.
Early life
Smith was born in UticaNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Oneida County
Oneida County, New York
Oneida County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 234,878. The county seat is Utica. The name is in honor of the Oneida, an Iroquoian tribe that formerly occupied the region....
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, to Peter Gerrit Smith (1768–1837) and Elizabeth Livingston (1773–1818), daughter of Col.
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
James Livingston (1747–1832) of Schuylerville
Schuylerville, New York
Schuylerville is a village in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 1,197 at the 2000 census. The village is named after the Schuyler family....
, Saratoga County
Saratoga County, New York
Saratoga County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 219,607. It is part of the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county seat is Ballston Spa...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and Elizabeth Simpson (1750–1800). His grandfather, James Livingston, fought at the battles of Quebec
Battle of Quebec (1775)
The Battle of Quebec was fought on December 31, 1775 between American Continental Army forces and the British defenders of the city of Quebec, early in the American Revolutionary War. The battle was the first major defeat of the war for the Americans, and it came at a high price...
and Saratoga
Battle of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga conclusively decided the fate of British General John Burgoyne's army in the American War of Independence and are generally regarded as a turning point in the war. The battles were fought eighteen days apart on the same ground, south of Saratoga, New York...
during the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
and is credited with thwarting Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold V was a general during the American Revolutionary War. He began the war in the Continental Army but later defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted to surrender it to the British forces...
's attempted treason by firing on the Vulture, the boat intended to carry Arnold and his British contact, Maj.
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
John André
John André
John André was a British army officer hanged as a spy during the American War of Independence. This was due to an incident in which he attempted to assist Benedict Arnold's attempted surrender of the fort at West Point, New York to the British.-Early life:André was born on May 2, 1750 in London to...
, to safety. Smith's maternal aunt, Margaret Livingston, married Daniel Cady
Daniel Cady
Daniel Cady was a prominent lawyer and judge in upstate New York. While perhaps better known today as the father of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Judge Cady had a full and accomplished life of his own.-Life:Cady was born in that part of Canaan, Columbia County, New York which was later split off to form...
of Johnstown, New York
Johnstown (city), New York
Johnstown is a city and the county seat of Fulton County in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2000 Census, the city had population of 8,511. Recent estimates put the figure closer to 8,100. The city was named by its founder, Sir William Johnson after his son John Johnson...
. Their daughter, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
, a founder and leader of the women's suffrage movement, was Smith's first cousin. In fact, Elizabeth Cady met her future husband, Henry Stanton, himself an active abolitionist, at the Smith family home in Peterboro, New York
Peterboro, New York
Peterboro, located about twenty-five miles southeast of Syracuse, New York, is a historic hamlet situated in the Town of Smithfield, Madison County, New York.-Founding:...
. Established in 1795, the town had been founded by and named for Gerrit Smith's father, Peter Smith, who built the family homestead there in 1804.
After graduating from Hamilton College in 1818, Smith took on the management of the vast estate of his father, a long-standing partner of John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor , born Johann Jakob Astor, was a German-American business magnate and investor who was the first prominent member of the Astor family and the first multi-millionaire in the United States...
, and greatly increased the family fortune. In 1822, he married Ann Carroll Fitzhugh (1805–1879, sister of Henry Fitzhugh
Henry Fitzhugh
Henry Fitzhugh was an American merchant, businessman and politician from New York.-Life:...
), and they had two children: Elizabeth Smith (1822–1911) and Greene Smith (ca. 1841-1880).
About 1828 Smith became an active temperance
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
campaigner, and in his hometown of Peterboro, he built one of the first temperance hotels in the country. He became an abolitionist in 1835, after attending an anti-slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
meeting in Utica
Utica, New York
Utica is a city in and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 62,235 at the 2010 census, an increase of 2.6% from the 2000 census....
, New York, which had been broken up by a mob.
Political career
In 1840 Smith played a leading part in the organization of the Liberty PartyLiberty Party (1840s)
The Liberty Party was a minor political party in the United States in the 1840s . The party was an early advocate of the abolitionist cause...
. In the same year, their presidential candidate James G. Birney
James G. Birney
James Gillespie Birney was an abolitionist, politician and jurist born in Danville, Kentucky. From 1816 to 1818, he served in the Kentucky House of Representatives...
married Elizabeth Potts Fitzhugh, Smith's sister-in-law. In 1848, Smith was nominated for the Presidency
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
by the remnant of this organization that had not been absorbed by the Free Soil Party
Free Soil Party
The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections. It was a third party and a single-issue party that largely appealed to and drew its greatest strength from New York State. The party leadership...
. An "Industrial Congress" at Philadelphia also nominated him for the presidency in 1848, and the "Land Reformers" in 1856. In 1840
New York gubernatorial election, 1840
The 1840 New York gubernatorial election was held from November 2 to 4, 1840, to elect the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of New York.-Results:...
and again in 1858, he ran for Governor of New York
Governor of New York
The Governor of the State of New York is the chief executive of the State of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military and naval forces. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy title of His/Her...
on an anti-slavery platform.
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
, Smith was nominated as the Liberty Party
Liberty Party (1840s)
The Liberty Party was a minor political party in the United States in the 1840s . The party was an early advocate of the abolitionist cause...
's presidential candidate. At the National Liberty Convention, held June 14–15 in Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, Smith gave a major address, including in his speech a demand for "universal suffrage in its broadest sense, females as well as males being entitled to vote." The delegates approved a passage in their address to the people of the United States addressing votes for women: "Neither here, nor in any other part of the world, is the right of suffrage allowed to extend beyond one of the sexes. This universal exclusion of woman... argues, conclusively, that, not as yet, is there one nation so far emerged from barbarism, and so far practically Christian, as to permit woman to rise up to the one level of the human family."
Smith, along with his friend and ally Lysander Spooner
Lysander Spooner
Lysander Spooner was an American individualist anarchist, political philosopher, Deist, abolitionist, supporter of the labor movement, legal theorist, and entrepreneur of the nineteenth century. He is also known for competing with the U.S...
, was one of the leading advocates of the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
as an antislavery document, as opposed to abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...
who believed it was to be condemned as a pro-slavery document. In 1852, Smith was elected to the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
as a Free-Soiler
Free Soil Party
The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections. It was a third party and a single-issue party that largely appealed to and drew its greatest strength from New York State. The party leadership...
, and in his address he declared that all men have an equal right to the soil; that wars are brutal and unnecessary; that slavery could be sanctioned by no constitution, state or federal; that free trade is essential to human brotherhood; that women should have full political rights; that the Federal government and the states should prohibit the liquor traffic within their respective jurisdictions; and that government officers, so far as practicable, should be elected by direct vote of the people. At the end of the first session he resigned his seat, largely out of frustration concerning the seemingly imminent passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Smith, disillusioned by the apparent failure of electoral change, brought his political life quickly to a close. He emerged later, however, even more strongly radical than before.
Social activism
After becoming an opponent of land monopolyMonopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
, he gave numerous farms of 50 acres (200,000 m²) each to indigent families. In 1846, hoping to help black families become self-sufficient and to provide them with the property ownership needed to vote in New York, Smith attempted to colonize approximately 120000 acres (485.6 km²) of land in North Elba, New York, near Lake Placid
Lake Placid, New York
Lake Placid is a village in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, United States. As of the 2000 census, the village had a population of 2,638....
in Essex County
Essex County, New York
Essex County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 39,370. Its name is from the English county of Essex. Its county seat is Elizabethtown...
with free blacks. The difficulty of farming in the Adirondack
Adirondack Mountains
The Adirondack Mountains are a mountain range located in the northeastern part of New York, that runs through Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Lewis, Saint Lawrence, Saratoga, Warren, and Washington counties....
region, coupled with the settlers lack of experience in housebuilding and the bigotry of white neighbors, caused the experiment to fail.
Peterboro became a station on the Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
, and, after 1850, Smith furnished money for the legal expenses of persons charged with infractions of the Fugitive Slave Law
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. This was one of the most controversial acts of the 1850 compromise and heightened...
. Smith became a leading figure in the Kansas Aid Movement, a campaign to raise money and show solidarity with anti-slavery immigrants to that territory. It was during this movement that he first met and financially supported John Brown
John Brown (abolitionist)
John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...
. He later became more closely acquainted with John Brown, to whom he sold a farm in North Elba, and from time to time supplied him with funds. In 1859, Smith joined the Secret Six
Secret Six
The Secret Six, or the Secret Committee of Six, were six wealthy and influential men who secretly funded the American abolitionist, John Brown. They were Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Samuel Gridley Howe, Theodore Parker, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Gerrit Smith, and George Luther Stearns...
, a group of wealthy northern abolitionists, who supported Brown in his efforts to capture the armory at Harpers Ferry
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States. In many books the town is called "Harper's Ferry" with an apostrophe....
, West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
(then Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
) and arm the slaves. After the failed raid on Harpers Ferry, Senator Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...
unsuccessfully attempted to have Smith accused, tried, and hanged along with Brown. Upset by the raid, its outcome, and aftermath, Smith suffered a mental breakdown, and for several weeks was confined to the state asylum
Mental Hospital
Mental hospital may refer to:*Psychiatric hospital*hospital in Nepal named Mental Hospital...
in Utica.
When the Chicago Tribune later claimed Smith had full knowledge of Brown's plan at Harper's Ferry, Smith sued the paper for libel, claiming that he lacked any such knowledge and thought only that Brown wanted guns so that slaves who ran away to join him might defend themselves against attackers. Smith's claim was countered by the Tribune, which produced an affidavit, signed by Brown's son, swearing that Smith had full knowledge of all the particulars of the plan, including the plan to instigate a slave uprising. In writing later of these events, Smith said, "That affair excited and shocked me, and a few weeks after I was taken to a lunatic asylum. From that day to this I have had but a hazy view of dear John Brown's great work. Indeed, some of my impressions of it have, as others have told me, been quite erroneous and even wild."
Smith was a major benefactor of New-York Central College, McGrawville
New-York Central College, McGrawville
New-York Central College, McGrawville was an institution of higher learning founded by Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor and other anti-slavery Baptists in 1849 in McGraw, New York...
, a co-educational and racially integrated college in Cortland County.
Smith was in favor of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, but at its close he advocated a mild policy toward the late Confederate states
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
, declaring that part of the guilt of slavery lay upon the North. In 1867, Smith, together with Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...
and Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history...
, helped to underwrite the $1,000,000 bond needed to free Jefferson Davis, who had, at that time, been imprisoned for nearly two years without being charged with any crime. In doing this, Smith incurred the resentment of Northern Radical Republican leaders.
Smith's passions extended to religion as well as politics. Believing that sectarianism
Sectarianism
Sectarianism, according to one definition, is bigotry, discrimination or hatred arising from attaching importance to perceived differences between subdivisions within a group, such as between different denominations of a religion, class, regional or factions of a political movement.The ideological...
was sinful, he separated from the Presbyterian Church in 1843, and was one of the founders of the Church at Peterboro, a non-sectarian institution open to all Christians of whatever denomination.
His private benefactions were substantial; of his gifts he kept no record, but their value is said to have exceeded $8,000,000. Though a man of great wealth, his life was one of marked simplicity. He died in 1874 while visiting relatives in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
The Gerrit Smith Estate
Gerrit Smith Estate
Gerrit Smith Estate, in Peterboro, New York, was a home of Gerrit Smith, 19th-century social reformer, abolitionist, and presidential candidate...
, in Peterboro, New York, was declared a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 2001.