Philip Church Schuyler to Frederick Douglass, October 7, 1855
PHILIP CHURCH SCHUYLER1A member of one of the most prominent families in New York, Phillip Church Schuyler (1805-72) lived in Ithaca, New York, until 1855, when he moved his family to Council City in Osage County, Kansas Territory. The following year, the delegates of the free-state territorial legislature elected him secretary of state. In 1858, Council City was renamed Burlingame in honor of free-state leader Aaron Burlingame, and after it was officially incorporated in 1860, Schuyler was elected its first mayor. In 1862 he was defeated in a bid for election to the Kansas legislature on the Democratic ticket. (Philadelphia, 1879), 7-9; Frank W. Blackmar, ed., , 2 vols. (Chicago, 1912), 2:255-56; Florence C. Christoph, >, 3 vols. (Albany, N.Y., 1987-95), 2:36, 122. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Council City, Kansas Territory. 7 Oct[ober] 1855.
F. DOUGLASS, ESQ.:
MY DEAR SIR:—
Some of my communications for your sheet I judge have failed to reach you. I receive the “Paper” regularly every month, by the Sante-Fee mail: this is as often as we now can receive mail matter from the East. On the 1st of January, we shall have a weekly service. I regret the loss of my last letter to you, as well as others, because, first the labor of preparing them in my situation, is something, and again, you feel that I neglect you. I see your “right arm”2Julia Griffiths. has left her post. Miss Griffiths has gone home,—can this be a permanent separation? I trust not; how can you get on without her?3Griffiths had worked as the informal business manager of Douglass’s newspapers, the and , from 1848 to the time of her return to Great Britain in early summer 1855. McFeely, , 164-65, 182. Her industry, talent, and tact for business fitted her remarkably well for the place she filled. Her courage and self-sacrifice is without precedent, as far as I am acquainted, in this or any other country. The accomplished of Britton’s daughters, united in mental, and literary effort, with
America’s chatteled sons, to argue the cause of the oppressed of our land, is an incident grand beyond conception. I trust she is to return to resume and occupy her old position that she filled with so much credit to herself, and acceptance to the readers of the “Paper,” and support to its Editor.
I see that “My Bondage and My Freedom” is having a run. God grant it abundant success; for the “material” aid it will render its worthy, and
laborious subject and author, and that it flow like scolding lead into the mines of such stupid, senseless, wicked, diabolical men as Atchison,4David Rice Atchison (1807-86) graduated from Transylvania University and studied law in his native Kentucky before moving to Missouri in 1830. There Atchison practiced law in Liberty, Clay County, won election to the state legislature in 1834 and 1838, and rose to the rank of major general in the state militia. In 1840 he became judge of the circuit court in Platte County, and later that year he received an appointment to the U.S. Senate to complete the term of the recently deceased Louis F. Linn. He was president pro tempore of that body for much of the period between 1846 and 1855. Atchison distinguished himself in the Senate as a friend of land grants to railroads and as a foe of his Missouri colleague Thomas Hart Benton, who took a more moderate stance on slavery than Atchison. Benton, defeated for reelection in 1850 largely because of Atchison’s efforts, ran for Atchison’s seat in 1855. In a bitter campaign, Atchison appealed to proslavery sentiment in western Missouri by stressing his role in the passage of those provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act that repealed the Missouri Compromise. Neither Benton nor Atchison won the 1855 election, but Atchison furthered his proslavery reputation in 1856 and 1857 by leading Missourians in raids against free-soil supporters in Kansas. He later lived in Texas, where he supported the Confederate war effort, and, for his last two decades, on a farm in Gower, Missouri. Theodore C. Atchison, “David R. Atchison: A Study in American Politics," , 24:502-15 (July 1930); , 1:114; , 10:223; , 1:402-03; (online). Stringfellow,5John H. Stringfellow (1819-1905) was a physician and a proslavery politician in Missouri and Kansas. Born into a prominent Virginia family, he went to Missouri upon graduation from the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1845. He practiced medicine in Carrollton and Platte City, Missouri, until 1854, when he moved his family to Atchison, Kansas, a town he helped found and finance. Stringfellow served as Speaker of the House in the Kansas territorial legislature of 1855 and as a colonel in the territorial militia. He also founded the Squatter Sovereign, a proslavery organ and Atchison’s first newspaper. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Stringfellow enlisted in the Confederate army as a captain. He returned to Atchison after the war, and in 1877 moved to Saint Joseph,
Missouri, where he lived for the remainder of his life. Walter Williams and Floyd Calvin Shoemaker, eds., , 5 vols. (Chicago, 1930), 4:389. Shannon,6A lawyer from St. Clairsville, Ohio, Wilson Shannon (1802-77) won the governorship of that state in 1838 and again in 1842 as a Democrat. He resigned that office to accept nomination as U.S. ambassador to Mexico from President John Tyler. In 1849 Shannon migrated to California, where he was elected for a term in the U.S. House of Representatives (1853-55). President Franklin Pierce appointed Shannon territorial governor of Kansas to replace Andrew Reeder in August 1855. Shannon’s proslavery views and ineffectual leadership encouraged an escalation of the guerrilla warfare in the territory. After a year in office, Shannon resigned and began practicing law in eastern Kansas. McMullin and Walker, , 163-64. the apostle divine, and Shannon, the apostle politician, and burn out the black and devilish element of their souls, and soften them down to the consistence of reasonable men!
The politics of Kansas are assuming an attitude of great interest. Be not astonished to see us pass out from under the lawless and damnable tyranny of our oppressors—like a bird from her trap—and having organized and transformed this territory into a of the first magnitude, we go up to Washington even at the next session of Congress, and ask for a place among the galaxy that spangle the American banner.—Will our prayer be heard? I think it will, for it will be offered in great faith. You have seen our repudiation7Kansas’s free-state settlers and their antislavery supporters across the nation contended that the territorial legislature elected in March 1855 possessed no valid authority, because of the fraudulent participation of several thousand proslavery “border ruffians” in the voting. Etcheson, , 50-60. of the Missouri-Kansas Legislature with all its laws—in mass meeting at Lawrence on the 14th of August,8The Lawrence Convention of 14-15 August 1855 had called for a follow-up meeting at Big Springs on 5 September to write a state constitution and apply to Congress for admission to the Union. The Big Springs convention delegates voted to ignore the “Bogus Legislature” of the territory and create one of their own. The meeting elected Andrew H. Reeder as the territory’s delegate to Congress, over the objections of followers of James H. Lane, whose faction succeeded in having the Big Springs gathering resolve against African American immigration to Kansas. Etcheson, , 70-73.—and the Convention held at “Big Springs,” on the 5th ult., laying down a platform (the best that could be got) fixing a day of election for the “Free State” voters, nominating our candidate for delegate to Congress, Ex-Governor Reeder.9Andrew H. Reeder.—We shall give him a large vote next Tuesday, and pack him with full affidavits10Written sworn statements of facts voluntarily given. of all the diabolical acts of our oppressors, and send him up to Washington, and ask for a seat on the floor of the House. Will he be denied? I trow not. At this last Convention we appointed a third, to meet at Sopeka on the 19th of Sept.,11Called by the Big Springs Convention, the Topeka Convention of 19 September 1855 issued a call for another convention in that settlement in October to draw up a state constitution barring slavery, which would allow the Kansas Territory to apply for immediate admission to the Union. Etcheson, , 72-73. for the purpose of consulting upon the propriety, or expediency, of forming a State Constitution for Kansas. It was decided that we elect on the same day of our delegate to Congress, delegates to a State Constitutional Convention, to be holden at Sopeka on the fourth Tuesday of this month, to form a Constitution, and organize a State Government, and set the machine in full motion, lubricating its joints and bearings with all the wisdom, prudence, care and courage that accidental pioneers can command.
What do you think of this move? Shall we succeed? Suppose we set our State Government in full operation, ply our hands to the business of law-making, and the General Government refuse us admission, and tell us we had better go back and submit to the Government they have
created for us.12An allusion to territorial governor Wilson Shannon and the federally recognized Kansas legislature elected in the 30 March 1855 election, which was marred by the illegal participation of several thousand Missouri “border ruffians.” Kansas free-state critics denied the legality of that legislature and of the slave code it quickly enacted for the territory. Etcheson, , 55-65. Will we do it? I say No. Well, will Gov. Shannon call up the old screechy, territorial whisky machine, and call upon us to address ourselves to it? [PJerhaps he may. But we are “sovereigns” and were not educated to such drill; and when he says, “stack arms” we shall be ready to fire. Will the General Government come to his aid? I say, No; they will not dirty any further hands with this business. I could say a thousand other things in relation to this interesting country, but my space says stop, and my mind dwells at this time on matters more sad and personal.
My friend, you have been an inmate of my house. You have slept and fed at my board. You were acquainted with the 13The daughter of John Henry Dix and Sarah Dunning Dix of Champlain, New York, Lucy Matilda Dix (1807-55) married Philip C. Schuyler in 1832 at Seneca Falls, New York. The couple lived for much of their marriage in Ithaca, New York, and had nine children. Lucy Schuyler died in Ithaca in September 1855 and was buried there. Schuyler married Louisa Bigelow in 1860. Cuyler Reynolds, , 3 vols. (New York, 1914), 2:809. of that home, and the mother of those children composing that family circle; did you ever discover aught but harmony and peace in that home? [H]ave you not received welcome from that dear woman? [D]id you discover the curled lip, or hear the taunting word from those dear children? Ah! [T]here was peace there, because of the able dame’s well disciplined mind, and high moral sentiment of the woman who moved at the head. But, alas! [A]las! [S]he was mortal, and subject to the contingencies of .— Death, oh! [Thou relentless tyrant! [T]hou demanded the best, the richest jewel of my home, and that, too, in the absence of the one upon whom that homerested more particularly for guidance and support,—death by disease entered that house, he fastened upon the younger member of it, the struggle lay between him; and that gray-headed, venerable physician, who has stood by my family even since I had one,—thro’ the aid of the , he prevailed and the enemy was driven back. His voracious appetite for blood only seemed the more determined not to be foiled in his purposes; he sunk his venomous fangs into the vitals of the head and heart of that home—and took her as his prey—the husband to receive the shock as the oak does the lightning bolt—in a wild, distant country, whither had been directed his steps, with the advise and concurrence of her who 1s now no more. Think of his riven, broken heart—but his is light.
Contemplate the ruin he spread around, in the destruction of the peace and joy of those six loved ones,—as they stood by the bed-side, and their mother gasp away her breath—and then to witness the corpse borne out of the door by the hands of strangers to its resting place—and they to return with hearts as desolate as the midnight hour. According to the accounts borne to me, the scenes attending this sad event partook almost of dramatic interest,—but I forbear. I thought it was she who should guide those tender and loved ones in their weakness, to manhood, and strength.
What shall I now do? is an enquiry I most earnestly make of Him, who has power and mercy to bestow and will not withhold.
Very truly, yours,
PHILIP C. SCHUYLER.
PLSr: , 26 October 1855.