Talk with Tenney
Talk with Tenney: Gerrit Smith’s Letter Concerning the 1859 Jerry Day Anniversary Celebration
🎙️ Talk with Tenney: Gerrit Smith’s Letter and the 1859 Jerry Day Controversy In this episode of Talk with Tenney, Lauren Tenney revisits a powerful moment in abolitionist history. She reads Gerrit Smith’s 1859 letter to the Jerry Day Celebration Committee, in which Smith declines an invitation to preside over the event—declaring that only blood and insurrection could now end slavery. This incendiary statement would later be seized upon by the Democratic Vigilant Association as supposed evidence that Smith had prior knowledge of John Brown and his company’s liberatory actions at Harper’s Ferry. Following the letter, hear a response from the editor of The Anti-Slavery Bugle, who reprinted Smith’s words and pushed back against his grim conclusion—arguing that the antislavery and temperance movements were still alive and vital. Together, these writings capture the tension, conviction, and deep divisions among abolitionists on the eve of the Civil War.
