LEWIS TAPPAN TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Brooklyn, N.Y. 27 Dec[ember] [18]56[.]

MR FREDERICK DOUGLASS,

ROCHESTER, N. Y.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

How happy it would make me if I could read, circulate and recommend your paper ¹, a commonly used Italian expression in the nineteenth century, means “to give it its fullest operation” or, in other words, a high level of dedication. The phrase was also used to modify adjectives, for example, “with con ámoré zeal.” Though the expression could be applied to many situations, it was frequently used to describe theatrical plays. London , 7 April 1821; Dublin, 24 October 1851. as the Italians say—without reserve with all my heart! As it is (don’t divulge it!) I consider it one of the very best papers in the land—ever protesting, as I must,—against the belligerent spirit—the vindictive spirit—the blood-thirsty spirit—what shall I call it? Now I do not think you delight in human butchery, in inflicting pain upon an enemy, in killing a slaveholder even. I could not impute any thing of the kind to you. You think the killing of slaveholders may be a sad neccessity; that the dread of slaughter operates upon their fears more than any other consideration; and that an individual, or a man of men, may achieve their liberty if in no other way by destroying the lives of those who hold them in chains. You will be asking yourself, why does my friend Tappan keep writing to me on this subject? I might reply, I think of you a great deal & especially when you appeal for aid to sustain your paper, and as I generally think with a pen in my hand it is natural that I should convey my thoughts to you.

Your thoughts respecting Mr Beecher’s Sermon²In addition to printing Henry Ward Beecher’s sermon from 21 December 1856, Douglass offered some commentary and objections. While Douglass praised Beecher’s antislavery efforts, he took great exception to two of his points. The first was Beecher’s statement “if the African had been as handsome as the Circassian, there would not have been a slave among us.” Douglass countered that “ugliness” had no part in the enslavement of Africans. The second was Beecher’s long assertion that Africa was a “non-entity,” and that it was Europeans who brought civilization to Africa. Douglass argued that modern civilization could be traced through Egypt to Ethiopia via those countries’ trade activities. , 26 December 1856 coincide with mine. He preached morning and evening on the same subject. Between writings I called upon him & expressed a regret that he had done injustice to Africa.³Lewis Tappan refers to Beecher’s argument that “ugliness” caused other races to view the Africans as inferior, which justified enslaving them. Beecher compared the head and facial features of non-Africans and Africans, saying, “The brow of one is wide, the other narrow.” Beecher further stated that the “mouth of one is compact and small, in the other enlarged.” , 26 December 1856. He had, it seems, in his mind, not Egypt, not the inhabitants on the Mediterranean coast, but the negro race surely.

I recalled to his recollection what the prince of historians, Herodotus,⁴A well-traveled Greek, Herodotus (c. 485-425 B.C.E.) is considered the father of history. He chronicled his adventures in approximately thirty manuscripts. His travels took him throughout the interior of the Persian Empire, northeast to Ecbatana (the summer residence of the Persian kings, located in modern Iran), southeast to Ardericca (a village in present-day Iraq near the Euphrates), east to Phoenicia (an area of Lebanon, Syria, and northern Israel), and south to Egypt. He sailed across the Black Sea and traveled through Greece, Macedonia, and southern Italy. His manuscripts document an appreciation for different races and cultures. On the people of Ethiopia he wrote: “Its inhabitants are also remarkable for their size, their beauty, and their length of life.” Arthur Holmes and Charles Bigg, eds., (London, 1873), ix—x, xv; Herodotus, , trans. Robin
Waterfield (New York, 1998), 216. says of the negroes in Egypt, describing them as Mr B. did, and yet saying they were considered in those days, models of beauty. ⁵Beecher did not cite Herodotus in his sermon. Tappan refers to Herodotus’s description, in his third book of , of an Ethiopian delegation visiting Egypt, calling them “the tallest and best-looking people in the world.” Herodotus, , trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt (New York, 2003), 178; , 26 December 1856. I might have told him that Sir John Bowring⁶ John Bowring (1792-1872) won a seat in Parliament in 1847 after having established himself as a businessman, linguist, and political journalist. He was instrumental in commercial reform and free trade agitation in England and Europe throughout the 1820s and 1830s, and became active in the Anti-Corn Law League in 1838. Bowring participated in the British abolitionist movement, attending the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 and working with the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Appointed governor of Hong Kong in 1854, he developed commercial ties between Britain and the Far East over the next three years, including, in 1855, the negotiation of the first treaty with Siam. Bowring’s service earned him a knighthood that year. In later life, he wrote and translated works of poetry, history, and natural science. His three sons also became well known as politicians, translators, and scientists. “Minutes of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society,” , UkOxU-Rh, 429; Sir John Bowring and Lewin B. Bowring, (London, 1877); Joyce A. Youings, (Plymouth, Eng., 1993); Douglas H. Maynard, “The World’s Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840,” , 47:458 (December 1960); , 2:984-88. honestly believes that the negro race is superior to the anglo Saxon race.⁷Sir John Bowring’s published views do not seem to bear this out. In his autobiographical writings, collected and published by his son after his death, Bowring stated that based upon his experience, he did not believe that the “intellectual aptitudes of the blacks [were] equal to those of the whites.” He did, however, believe that in “some regions they [were] superior to those of the long-haired inhabitants.” Bowring elaborated further on this notion, stating that “having had a good deal to do with black youths and the process of education,” he felt that although “up to a certain point they, [were] even more teachable and ready then Europeans of the same age, it [was] very difficult, if not impossible, to raise them above that point,” making it hard for them to master “complicated mathematical problems, . . . high studies in astronomy, or any of the abstract sciences.” Bowring, , 393. But features and the tincture of the skin are nothing; the mind is the standard of the man.

I had a part, as you know, in establishing the National Era.⁸Based in Washington, D.C., the ^*National Era was an antislavery newspaper edited by Gamaliel Bailey from 1847 until his death in 1859. Because it was printed on slave soil, the labored under the constant threat of mob violence; Bailey nonetheless built a subscription base of over twenty-five thousand readers. Harriet Beecher Stowe aided in this popularity when the serialized from late May 1851 through April 1852. Bailey’s moderate editorial style drew severe criticism from abolitionists such as Douglass, who referred to the as “powerless for Good” in 1851. Five years later, when Lewis Tappan suggested to Bailey that he hire Douglass as a coeditor, Bailey refused, citing both his personal differences with Douglass’s radical abolitionism and the potential uproar in Washington over the appointment of a black editor to his paper. Duane Mowry, “The , an Abolition Document,” , 8:462-64 (November 1904); Stanley Harrold, (Kent, Ohio, 1986), 140-41, 192. It was thought a great exploit to establish an anti Slavery paper at the seat of Government. Many rather bold abolitionists thought the undertaking quite premature. The decision was about as bold a one as it would be to establish an antislavery paper in Washington now to be edited by you. If you would edit a paper there on Peace principles, asserting the equality of men before the law, their rights to citizenship, to family [illegible]; & parental protection; advocating the sin of Slavery, its baneful effects upon Slaveholders, Slaveholding communities, and the nation; showing that it is contrary to the Constitution & the Bible; appealing to slaveholders to cease from their cruelties, to act out the principles of the Dec. of Independence, to cooperate with the North in effecting a peaceful abolition of Slavery—I would aid in an attempt to gain friends to [illegible] you to plant your standard in the District of Columbia. The announcement would cause a [illegible] of joy through the anti Slavery ranks and quicken the pulse of every slaveholder in the United States. What say you?

Truly yours’

L TAPPAN.

ALS: Lewis Tappan Papers, DLC.