For Frederick Douglass' Paper.

LETTER FROM J. W. LOGUEN.

—

SYRACUSE, March 7, 1854.

MY DEAR DOUGLASS:—It is a long time
since you have heard from me. I have been
too much engaged to write. Indeed, writing
is not my forte, to use a Yankee phrase. I
can talk some; and a good deal in the style
of an untutored slave. Had I not been hor
ribly wronged, as you and all our race, I
think I should have been a very still, quiet
man. Oppression has made me mad; it has
waked up all my intellectual and physical
energies. It has compelled me to talk not
a little in my poor way—but not to write
much. A cruel school master has been my
only education.

You have learned, ere this, that Syracuse
is a great place. There is a new thing under
the sun here. We have a class of Chris
tian Democrats, who meet every Sabbath in
the City Hall, and fill it full, and sing, and
pray, and read the Bible, and preach, every
man for himself. That is, they claim that
one Christian is no more a priest than an
other, but that all should preach according
to their gifts; and that charity, not doctrine,
is the foundation of the true church. These
meetings have caused great excitement.
Growing out of them is a Biblical debate
between our good friends, Luther Lee on
the one side, and S. J. May on the other—the former maintaining the tri-personality of
the Godhead, as affirmed by the Orthodox Chris
tians in this and other countries; and the
latter denying it, and maintaining the unity
of the Godhead. Floods of people, the elite
of the city, pour into these meetings every
night that is not forestalled by some other
popular demonstration. Well, let them ag
itate. There is nothing like getting the peo
ple to thinking.

But this Nebraska business is the great
smasher of Syracuse, as elsewhere. It is
smashing up platforms, and scatting par
tizans at a fine rate. Political scoundrels
are adopting the question of the famous
Daniel with much concern. "Where shall I
stand?" Even James R. Lawrence smites
the traitor Douglas, and spits upon his in
famous bill. This atrocious villany of that
enemy of God and man, (Douglas,) is doing
a fine work for the slave, (but no thanks to
him.) It is making new constitutions, new
laws, and organizing physical forces to carry
them out, expressly for the slave. The peo
ple are becoming ashamed to have any con
nection with the ungodly course that many
of their Congressmen pursue, when in power,
for the sake of party. They are beginning
to say now, "Let those traritors do what they
will for slavery, we will trample their statutes
under our foot." They are becoming ready
to draw the sword and fling away the scab
bard, and that is what must be done. The
time is coming when blood is to flow in this
cause; and let it come I say I am always pre
pared in my own person for that event. I
resolved long ago to face the tyrants on their
own soil, and die there, if need be, for my
poor people. So long as God spares my
life, it shall be spent to defy all slave laws.
They wish me to buy myself; I say I won't.
Nothing in the world is so good for the
slave as this Nebraska bill. It is such an
outrageous assault upon all laws, all com
pacts, and rights and honor, that a political
slaveholder will be no more respected here
after, than a political Satan. I want the
North strongly committed against it; and
then pass the bill, and we need not look far
for the day when Northern freedom will be
gin to grapple his iron sinews about the en
emy, and crush him to death wherever he
can find him, be he North or South. I do
most profoundly sympathize with the senti
ment of Lysander Spooner, Esq., to the Bos
ton Commonwealth the other day. Says he:

"I am not in favor of making nor keeping
any compacts with slavery in regard to the
boundaries. I am glad to see that slavery in
tends neither to make nor keep any such
compacts with freedom. I don't believe the
constitution authorizes any such compro
mises. I am glad that all excuses for the
discussion of such compacts are likely soon
to be swept away. I hope the Nebraska
bill will pass; and I hope then to see free
dom and slavery meet face to face, with no
question between them, except which shall
conquer, and which shall die."

That is the stuff. There is no virtue, no
honor whatever in any compact made with
slavery. The parties to any such compact
are equally disgraced; their guilt and in
famy are equally deep and damning. That
is the sentiment of our fathers of the Rev
olution (yes, our fathers;) and if that prin
ciple is not written in our history, let it be re
corded now—and the sooner the better. It
would be a capital time now to test the com
promise of 1850 in Syacuse, by an attempt
to arrest and return to bondage a fugitive
slave. I would like to see such an attempt
made.

Let me give you, my dear friend, a fact
here which is significant of the state of
feeling at Syracuse. The democrats made
their city nominations Friday—Thomas
Alvard, Esp., an old Hunker, in the Chair.
The Convention unanimously nominated A.
Harvey, Esq., for Mayor, and sent a commit
tee to notify him of it, and request him to
come to the Convention. He came and made
his speech, expressing his regret that they
had made such a choice, but did not decline.
Said he, (and this is the signifcant thing,)
raising his hand, with great emotion and
characteristic emphasis:

"If I am to be the Democratic candidtate
for Mayor, I wish the Democratic party, and
all electors to understand my opinion
on this slavery question. I am now and for
ever opposed to the encroachments of sla
very upon one inch beyond its present ac
cursed limits. If they vote for me, they
must do it with that most explicit under
standing."

His speech electrified the house. So, my
dear sir, you see that we are a moving peo
ple. I tell you, we are fast getting up to the
Jerry level. It is becoming the popular sen
timent; and there is no safety until it is the
practical law of the land—scoundrel statutes
to the contrary notwithstanding. That point
reached, and the cry will be "Freedom or
Revolution." Then let them add territory
to territory as they please; it shall be for
freedom and not for slavery.

I am in great demand about these times.
The Nebraska bill is waking the people up
in all parts of the country. I have of late
bene holding very large meetigns in the Cos.
of Herkimer, Wayne, Cayuga, and Onon
daga. I have never been so much driven
about by the popular demand for lectures
on slavery. I can scarcely meet half the
demands upon me, which come from all parts
of the compass; and such audiences as swell
upon these occasions are inspiring. I some
times wish we had fifty Douglasses, Morells,
and Watkins's in this State, and many
Days, Browns, and Gaines, in Ohio; and
Wagoners, Jones, and Parkers, in Illinois—
and God with them all—and then what a
mighty work would be done for the outraged
slave. May the Lord send them forth, is my
prayer. I shall answer those demands on
me in the cause as well as I can, and you
may occasionally hear from me. We shall
have an eventful year to look upon, next Au
gust, when our State Council assembles in
our city of salt. I am calculating for an
interesting time. I read the letters from
Washington with much interest, from Miss
Julia Griffiths. We are now beginning to
see what a lasting impression our good and
noble friend, the Hon. Gerrit SmithSmith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71. , will
leave upon this nation. Millions of my poor
people have their faces turned to him, with
their eyes filled with tears of blood, looking
for deliverance. He is our Congressman.
The under-ground rail-road is doing great
business this winter; we pass about one a
day. Excuse my length. I am

Yours, for Liberty,

J. W. LOGUEN.