For Frederick Douglass' Paper.

PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR.

COLUMBIA, Pa., Dec 17, 1854.

MR. EDITOR:—Having a few moments to
spare, I will devote them to the prolific
subject of prejudice "against color," even at the
expense of being considered as maintaining
the wrong side of the question.

Your experience in the revolutions of your
own mind has taught you to respect the
reason of your opponents, not their
denunciation. Perhaps there is no other subject
within the broad range of the "Anti-Slavery
movement," that has received so little
attention as that of prejudice. The reason
may, perhaps, lie in the fact, that most persons
are more willing to investigate a foreign
subject, than to examine themselves. The
feeling of prejudice is universal in its
nature, and exerts a controlling influence over
the thoughts and actions of all classes and
conditions of people.

I believe that those who maintain that
prejudice has its origin in the condition of
the enslaved, or the nominally free, are wrong,
and for this purpose I write. I do not believe
that this prejudice is CAUSED by either
the complexion, condition or blood of those
against whom it is directed; but I do believe
that prejudice is directed against us, as
CommunipawSmith, James McCune

James McCune Smith (1813–65), a prominent black physician, abolitionist, and writer, was born in New York City to an enslaved father and a self-emancipated mother. He attended the New York African Free School, but was denied admission to Columbia University, Geneva Medical College, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He turned to the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he received a B.A. (1835), M.A. (1836), and M.D. (1837). Upon returning to New York, he opened a pharmacy and medical practice that catered to both blacks and whites. He became involved in the abolitionist movement, serving as an associate editor of the Colored American in 1839, contributed regularly to the Anglo-African Magazine, and wrote correspondence for the North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper under the pseudonym “Communipaw.” Smith also wrote the introduction to Douglass’s second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). In 1861, Smith helped finance the revival of the Weekly Anglo-African to oppose black colonization and emigration, and he was a prominent member of the New York City Young Men’s Association, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the New York African Society for Mutual Relief. He was the sole attending physician of the Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children, a member and vestryman of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and a trustee of the New York Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children. In 1863 Wilberforce College appointed Smith professor of anthropology, but illness kept him from assuming his post. Lib., 1 June 1838; FDP, 18 May 1855; Douglass Papers, ser. 2:7–19; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 243; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 90–92, 103, 110; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 115, 134; Rhoda G. Freeman, “The Free Negro in New York City in the Era before the Civil War” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1966), 40–42, 177, 186, 195, 200, 247, 276, 286, 325, 353, 393; DAB, 27:288–89. says, "because we are colored,"
and as Langston asserts, "on the ground of
color," and as others say, "because of our
complexion."

I did not intend to weaken the force of
Mr. Remond's argument by any defense of
mine. I only favored his argument, because
I regarded it as being more tangible than
those of his opponents. I do not regard
any argument as being defensible, that
asserts that the cause of prejudice lies in our
condition, unless it be first admitted that our
complexion is that condition.

In your short reply, you have given a
definition of prejudice which I regard as far
more truthful, when you say "that the reason
of prejudice is not to be found in the
color of those against whom it is directed,
but in the pride and malice of the dominant
race." We are so near together on this
point, that I will reply be defining my own
views on the subject.

I maintain that prejudice has its origin in
the human instinct, and is enforced by the
pride, malice and hatred of its possessors;
that we suffer from its exercise, by the
despotic influence of the dominant class, because
we differ from them in features, race and
complexion; and that, as prejudice is the
offspring of human hatred, it can only be
dethroned by human reason; that those
who exercise it, to the injury of others, have
no claim to the tittle [sic] of reasonable beings;
that the color, condition, blood or faith,
against which it may be directed, are not in
themselves the cause of its existence, but
are only the pivots on which it rests.

Now, sir, if you attach any importance
to the term, "reason of prejudice," I shall
not be able to argue with you, because I
regard it as a fatal admission to allow that
there is any reason for prejudice, or that
it can in any way or manner rest on such
a foundation. Its whole creature image,
and structure is instructive, and its
demonical agents could prefer their work as well
if they were idiots, without brains, or those
characteristics of reason which distinguish
other animals who are denied the use of
the reasoning faculties, by the limitations
of nature.

My object is not controversy; but I maintain
that we ought to fully understand the
issue that is being made agains us by the
National and State Governments. With
the exception of New York, no other State
has erected a standard of condition within
our reach. the other State Governments,
where they have made a distinction at all,
have based it upon complexion or blood.—

In this country, complexion forms the
measure of rights, the standard of manhood, and
the character of citizenship. It is useless to
assert that complexion has nothing to do
with the great question of rights. In this
country, it is, and has been, the Alpha and
Omega of the whole subject, legislative and
conventional, from the adoption of the
U.S. Constitution to the present hour. I wish
the false notion that our condition forms
the barrier that excludes us from the rights
and privileges of American citizens, could
no longer find an intelligent defender.—Then the true issue would appear before us;
and we would all be able to see plainly
that the remedy for our present disabilities
depends on the change of the "white man's"
mind, not the "black man's" condition. If
the facts that will sustain this position were
collected together, it might truly be said—"like Alps, on Alps, they rise."

W. WWhipper, William

William Whipper (1804-76) first became known for his "free labor and temperance" grocery in Philadelphia. During the 1830s Whipper attended the annual National Negro Conventions regularly, and in 1835 he helped found the American Moral Reform Society and served as the editor of its journal, the National Reformer. That same year, Whipper moved to Pennsylvania's interior, where he became involved in the lumber business and in the Underground Railroad. Initially Whipper rejected the idea of racially based reform movements, but late in life he came to accept African American organizations as necessary for the attainment of racial equality. Because he desired the "moral elevation" of African Americans within American society, he often agreed with Douglass's approach to political and social reform. During the 1850s Whipper supported the emigrationist movement, but the outbreak of the Civil War prevented him from moving himself and his family to Canada. Instead, he returned to Philadelphia after the war and worked as a cashier for the Freedman's Bank, which failed in 1873. Richard P. McCormick, "William Whipper: Moral Reformer," Pennsvlvania History, 43:23-48 (January 1976); Jack Salzman, David L. Smith, and Cornel West, eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, 5 vols. (New York, 1996), 5:2817-18; DANB, 643. .