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 m 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 cannot, 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.
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