Editorial Correspondence.

ELLINGTON, Jan. 12th, 1855

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ESQ : DEAR SIR:—Probably, a hasty line from me, though not
in very good condition to write, would be more acceptable than none at all. I have
finished my labors in Cattaraugus County,
having met in every place, a most cordial
and flattering reception. I have not failed
to declare what I conceive to be the whole
truth, as those who have heard, will testify.
I hope some good has been effected. I am
told that these meetings have been more
numerously attended than any of a like
character, ever held in the county. I am now in
Chautauque, and commenced my labors at
Fredonia, having been invited to deliver the
sixth Lecture of the Course before the
Young Men's Literary Association. This is
a very worthy and flourishing institution.—Horace GreeleyGreeley, Horace

Horace Greeley (1811-72), journalist, reformer, and Republican politician, was the founder and lifelong editor of the New York Tribune. Born in Amherst, New Hampshire, Greeley moved to New York City in 1831 and became coeditor of a small literary periodical in 1834. With the sponsorship of William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed, Greeley soon entered the field of political journalism, editing Whig campaign weeklies in 1838 and again in 1840. The next year he launched the Tribune, which quickly outstripped its local competitors and attained a large circulation throughout the North. In addition to promoting a panoply of social causes ranging from Fourierism to the abolition of capital punishment, the Tribune under Greeley became the leading editorial voice of the Republican party during the 1850s. Openly hostile to abolitionism during the early 1840s, Greeley grew steadily more radical on the slavery issue, but his racial attitudes mirrored the ambivalence of many northern free-labor spokesmen. Greeley felt that blacks deserved legal equality and a fair chance to compete in the marketplace, but he doubted that African Americans as a group were capable of taking full advantage of such opportunities. Thus, during the 1840s and 1850s Greeley worked to extend equal suffrage to New York blacks while simultaneously accepting that they were an "indolent, improvident, servile, and licentious" race incapable of achieving social equality with whites. In his Recollections Greeley claims to have rejected colonization during the mid-1830s, but in fact he gave periodic support to emigrationist schemes throughout the antebellum era, and clashed repeatedly with Frederick Douglass, James McCune Smith, and other black leaders over the issue. Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life (New York, 1868); Glyndon G. Van Deusen, Horace Greeley: Nineteenth-Century Crusader (Philadelphia, 1953); Ralph Ray Fahrney, Horace Greeley and the "Tribune" in the Civil War (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1936); Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, 262-63, 297-300; DAB, 7:528-34. , and Cassius M. ClayClay, Cassius Marcellus

Kentucky free-labor advocate Cassius Marcellus Clay (1810–1903) inherited seventeen slaves and extensive farm acreage in 1828. As a Whig representative in the state legislature, Clay began expounding an economic indictment of slavery. In 1843 he freed his slaves and hired them as free laborers. At the same time, he launched a campaign for gradual abolition addressed largely to the state’s non-slaveholding whites. In June 1845 Clay launched a weekly newspaper, the True American, in Lexington, to advocate the formation of a moderate antislavery party in Kentucky. After local residents forcibly dismantled his press and shipped it to Cincinnati, Clay published the True American in Louisville. Clay joined the U.S. Army in the Mexican-American War, a move denounced by abolitionists, who generally applauded Clay. At that time Clay sold the newspaper to John C. Vaughan, who suspended it in September 1846. Clay provided crucial financial support and physical protection to John G. Fee’s abolitionist colony at Berea in the 1850s. He served as U.S. ambassador to Russia (1861–69) and remained active in Kentucky politics during and after Reconstruction. David L. Smiley, Lion of White Hall: The Life of Cassius M. Clay (Madison, Wisc., 1962); Asa Earle Martin, The Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky Prior to 1850 (1918; New York, 1970), 112; Stanley Harrold, The Abolitionists and the South, 1831–1861 (Lexington, Ky., 1995), 28–29, 32–33, 40–41, 132–33; DAB, 4:169–70. have
lectured to general acceptance before this
liberal Association. A change, almost
miraculous, has been effected in public sentiment,
and we, as a people, have great reason to
rejoice in the contemplation of the fact. If
any one wishes evidence of the change let

him read it in the fact, that not only are the
most "ultra" white Abolitionists, but colored
men also, delivering lectures before Lyceums,
and other Literary Associations. We must
not, then, grow weary or despondent, but
cling to our well grounded Hope, as the ivy
to the shattered oak, 'mid the lightning and
the tempest. Again: the churches are
beginning now, at least, to look through our
telescope.

Galileo once declared to a certain astronomer,
that he had discovered a "bright particular
star" in the heavens and that it could
be plainly discerned through his telescope.
His fellow astronomer also had a
telescope, through which he looked again,
and again, and declared that the star was not
discoverable, and that Galileo was mistaken.
The celebrated astronomer looked again
through his telescope, and declared that he
could plainly see it. His companion as
stoutly denied it. "Well," said Galileo, "come
look through my telescope." ["]Ah no," he
rejoined, "for then I shall be able to see it, and
shall be obliged to acknowledge that you are
right." Just so, has it been with the churches.
We have declared one thing, and they another.
We have, again and again, requested
them to look through our telescope, but they
would not consent to that, for then they
should, like the friend of Galileo, be
compelled to acknowledge that we are right.—But now they are beginning to accede to our
proposition, and we must see to it, that our
telescopes are kept in good condition.

I spoke last night in this place, and also
in the afternoon. The evening meeting was
the largest ever held in the village. The
church was densely packed, with the gallery
and the lower floor. The night before, Sinclearville
turned out, en masse, to hear the
truth. A goodly number, friend Douglass,
are looking through our telescope.

To night I go to Jamestown. It does my
soul good to see the people rally so nobly
around the once despised, but now elevated
Standard. Nil desperandum! That is our
motto. We must triumph. Truth is
omnipotent. It may be laid low in the sepulchre
of this generation's hate, but we behold
unmistakable premonitions of its resurrection
morning. Our cloud has a silver lining.—Though the tempest pour down upon us
one continuous stream of wrath, yet it hath
not Immortality.

Yours, in hope,
WM. J. WATKINS.