Gerrit Smith
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Gerrit Smith
Gerrit Smith (March 6, 1797 – December 28, 1874), also spelled Gerritt Smith, was a leading American social reformer, abolitionist, businessman, public intellectual, and philanthropist. Married to Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, Smith was a candidate for President of the United States in 1848, 1856, and 1860, but only won the election to a single term, 1853–1854, in the House of Representatives. Valedictorian of his class at the new Hamilton College, he had "a fine mind", with "a strong literary bent and a marked gift for public speaking". He was called "the sage of Peterboro." He was well liked, even by his political enemies. The many who appeared at his house in Peterboro, invited or not, were well received. Smith, the richest man in New York State and one of the wealthiest in the country, was committed to political reform. Above all, the elimination of slavery; so many fugitive slaves came to Peterboro to ask for his help (usually, in reaching Canada) that there is a book about ...
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United States Representative
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they comprise the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The House's composition was established by Article One of the United States Constitution. The House is composed of representatives who, pursuant to the Uniform Congressional District Act, sit in single member congressional districts allocated to each state on a basis of population as measured by the United States Census, with each district having one representative, provided that each state is entitled to at least one. Since its inception in 1789, all representatives have been directly elected, although universal suffrage did not come to effect until after the passage of the 19th Amendment and the Civil Rights Movement. Since 1913, the number of voting representatives h ...
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1848 United States Presidential Election
The 1848 United States presidential election was the 16th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1848. In the aftermath of the Mexican–American War, General Zachary Taylor of the Whig Party defeated Senator Lewis Cass of the Democratic Party. Despite Taylor's unclear political affiliations and beliefs, and the Whig opposition to the Mexican–American War, the 1848 Whig National Convention nominated the popular general over party stalwarts such as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. For vice president, the Whigs nominated Millard Fillmore, a New York Whig known for his moderate views on slavery. Incumbent President James K. Polk, a Democrat, honored his promise not to seek re-election, leaving his party's nomination open. The 1848 Democratic National Convention nominated Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan after former President Martin Van Buren withdrew his bid for a second term over a platform dispute. Van Buren broke from his party to lead the ticket of the ...
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Abolitionism In The United States
In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the late colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified 1865). The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In Colonial America, a few German Quakers issued the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery, which marks the beginning of the American abolitionist movement. Before the Revolutionary War, evangelical colonists were the primary advocates for the opposition to slavery and the slave trade, doing so on humanitarian grounds. James Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony of Georgia, originally tried to prohibit slavery upon its founding, a decision that was eventually reversed. During the Revolutionary era, all states abolished the international sla ...
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Colonization Movement
The back-to-Africa movement was based on the widespread belief among some European Americans in the 18th and 19th century United States that African Americans would want to return to the continent of Africa. In general, the political movement was an overwhelming failure; very few former slaves wanted to move to Africa. The small number of freed slaves who did settle in Africa—some under duress—initially faced brutal conditions, due to diseases to which they no longer had biological resistance. As the failure became known in the United States in the 1820s, it spawned and energized the abolitionist movement. In the 20th century, the Jamaican political activist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, members of the Rastafari movement, and other African Americans supported the concept, but few actually left the United States. In the late 18th century, thousands of Black Loyalists joined British military forces during the American Revolutionary War. In 1787, the British Crown founded ...
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Temperance Movement
The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emphasize alcohol's negative effects on people's health, personalities and family lives. Typically the movement promotes alcohol education and it also demands the passage of new laws against the sale of alcohol, either regulations on the availability of alcohol, or the complete prohibition of it. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the temperance movement became prominent in many countries, particularly in English-speaking, Scandinavian, and majority Protestant ones, and it eventually led to national prohibitions in Canada (1918 to 1920), Norway (spirits only from 1919 to 1926), Finland (1919 to 1932), and the United States (1920 to 1933), as well as provincial prohibition in India (1948 to present). A number of temperance organiza ...
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North Elba, New York
North Elba is a town in Essex County, New York, United States. The population was 8,957 at the 2010 census. North Elba is on the western edge of the county. It is by road southwest of Plattsburgh, south-southwest of Montreal, and north of Albany. While it is only west-southwest of Burlington, Vermont, one would have to either take a ferry across Lake Champlain, or drive around it. The entirety of the village of Lake Placid is located within the boundaries of North Elba, as is part of the village of Saranac Lake. North Country Community College is located in North Elba. The Adirondack Scenic Railroad traverses the town. The John Brown Farm State Historic Site is in North Elba. History The town was first settled around 1814. In 1840 there were six families in the future North Elba, which was formed from part of the town of Keene in 1849. The abolitionist John Brown, attracted by the views of local abolitionist Gerrit Smith, came to the town in 1849 to found a comm ...
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Timbuctoo, New York
Timbuctoo, New York, was a mid-19th century farming community of African-American homesteaders in the remote town of North Elba, New York. It was located in the vicinity of , near today's Lake Placid village (which did not exist then), in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York. Contrary to the information given out by donor Gerrit Smith, who said that the lots were in clusters, they were spread out over an area north to south, and east to west. The land was called "the highest arable spot of land in the State, if, indeed, soil so hard and sterile can be called arable." (Most of this article appeared i''The Liberator,'' December 16, 1859, p. 3.) Timbuctoo has acquired a mythical status in the history of New York State. The land is reforested and the exact location of the houses is unknown. While a historic marker was installed in July 2022, the settlement is not found on any local maps. There are no surviving buildings nor known foundations of buildings. There are no know ...
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Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP ("Grand Old Party"), is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. The GOP was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists who opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed for the potential expansion of chattel slavery into the western territories. Since Ronald Reagan's presidency in the 1980s, conservatism has been the dominant ideology of the GOP. It has been the main political rival of the Democratic Party since the mid-1850s. The Republican Party's intellectual predecessor is considered to be Northern members of the Whig Party, with Republican presidents Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison all being Whigs before switching to the party, from which they were elected. The collapse of the Whigs, which had previously been one of the two major parties in the country, strengthened the party's electoral success. Upon its founding, it supported c ...
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Liberty Party (United States, 1840)
The Liberty Party was a minor political party in the United States in the 1840s (with some offshoots surviving into the 1860s). The party was an early advocate of the Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist cause and it broke away from the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) to advocate the view that the United States Constitution, Constitution was an anti-slavery document. William Lloyd Garrison, leader of the AASS, held the contrary view, that the Constitution should be condemned as an evil pro-slavery document. The party included abolitionists who were willing to work within electoral politics to try to influence people to support their goals. By contrast, the radical Garrison opposed voting and working within the system. Many Liberty Party members joined the anti-slavery (but not abolitionist) Free Soil Party in 1848 and eventually helped establish the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party in the 1850s. Party origin The party was announced in November 18 ...
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Cazenovia (village), New York
Cazenovia is a Administrative divisions of New York#Village, village located in the Cazenovia, New York, Town of Cazenovia in Madison County, New York, Madison County, New York (state), New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, the village had a population of 2,835. The village lies on the southeastern shore of Cazenovia Lake, which is approximately long and .5 mile across. Cazenovia is within a half hour of Syracuse, New York. The village is located on U.S. Route 20 in New York, US Route 20 and New York State Route 13, and is home to Cazenovia College. History Cazenovia was established in 1794 by John Lincklaen, a young Netherlands, Dutch naval officer who purchased the town under the auspices of the Holland Land Company. Some of the first buildings established in Cazenovia were what is now the Presbyterian Church and the company store. The town is named after Theophilus Cazenove, an agent with the land company. The village was incorporated in 1810 and was the first ...
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Fugitive Slave Convention
The Fugitive Slave Law Convention was held in Cazenovia, New York, on August 21 and 22, 1850. Madison County, New York, was the abolition headquarters of the country, because of philanthropist and activist Gerrit Smith, who lived in neighboring Peterboro, New York, and called the meeting "in behalf of the New York State Vigilance Committee." A hostile newspaper report refers to the meeting as "Gerrit Smith's Convention". This was one month before the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed by the United States Congress; its passage was a foregone conclusion, and the convention never even discussed how its passage could be prevented. Instead the question was what the existing fugitive slaves were to do, and how their friends could help them. Participants included Frederick Douglass, until recently himself a fugitive slave, the Edmonson sisters, Gerrit Smith, Samuel Joseph May, Theodore Dwight Weld, his wife Angelina Grimké, and others. The convention opened at what the announcement ...
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Hamilton College
Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. It was founded as Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812 in honor of inaugural trustee Alexander Hamilton, following a proposal brought forward after his death in 1804. Hamilton has been coeducational since 1978, when it merged with its coordinate sister school Kirkland College. Hamilton is an exclusively undergraduate institution, enrolling 1,900 students in the fall of 2021. Students may choose from 57 areas of study, including 44 majors, or design an interdisciplinary concentration. Hamilton's student body is 53% female and 47% male, and comes from 45 U.S. states and 46 countries. Hamilton places among the most selective colleges in the country, with an 11.8% acceptance rate. Athletically, Hamilton teams compete in the New England Small College Athletic Conference. History Hamilton began in 1793 as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy, a seminary founded by ...
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