Correspondence 2: Introduction and Timeline
Introduction to Volume Two
John R. McKivigan
In this collection, the second of five contemplated volumes of Frederick
Douglass’s correspondence, the editors have followed the selection prin-
ciples laid out in the editorial method published in volume 1. The current
volume covers correspondence to and from Douglass in the years 1853 to
1865. The Douglass Papers staff located 1,255 letters for this time period
and selected 219, or just over 17 percent, of them for publication. The re-
maining 1,036 letters are summarized in the volume’s calendar.
Of the 1,255 letters, 286 were autograph letters, written in the author’s
hand. These letters were recovered by the project from thirty-eight re-
positories in the United States and Great Britain. Two hundred eighteen of
the autograph letters, or approximately 75 percent of them, were found in
three libraries: the Library of Congress, the Syracuse University Library,
and the University of Rochester Library. For this volume, the project se-
lected and reproduced 134 of these autograph letters, from thirty-two dif-
ferent repositories.
Of the remaining 969 letters, the closest known source to the original
manuscript letter for all but four documents is a text printed in a newspaper
from the era. Douglass’s letters were discovered in fourteen newspapers
of the period, but 943, nearly 90 percent, were first published in one of
the two newspapers edited by Douglass himself, the Frederick Douglass’
Paper and Douglass’ Monthly. The project reproduced 84, less than 9 per-
cent, of these letters that have survived only in an earlier printed form.
Of the 219 letters selected for publication in this volume, 115 were
written by Douglass and 104 were written to him. Although this ratio of
letters to and from Douglass is almost even, 87 percent (1,095/1,255) of
all surviving letters from this time period were written to him. Thus, the
letters chosen for inclusion here represent over 70 percent (115/162) of
those written by Douglass, compared to just under 10 percent (104/1,093)
of those written to him. This seeming imbalance is understandable, since
many of the unprinted letters (listed in the calendar) were written to
Douglass as a newspaper editor and lacked substantive content, repeti-
tively expressed an opinion, or simply reported an event.
In the letters for this time period, Douglass’s correspondents represent
not only many of the leading names in the antislavery movement on both
sides of the Atlantic, but also many less well-remembered figures in a va-
riety of reform movements. Likewise, a significant number of women and
African Americans are numbered among the correspondents.
The letters in this volume follow Douglass as he searched for more
beneficial alliances and more effective tactics in the battle against slavery.
By 1853, the estrangement from his original abolitionist mentors, follow-
ers of the Boston editor William Lloyd Garrison, reached the point that
almost no communication between Douglass and this group occurred un-
til after the Civil War’s conclusion. Instead, Douglass moved closer to the
political abolition camp led by the wealthy New Yorker Gerrit Smith. Nu-
merous letters between the two men document Douglass’s great financial
dependence on Smith to maintain his journalistic operation.
Douglass’s devoted editorial assistant, the visiting British abolitionist
Julia Griffiths, figured in Douglass’s correspondence with other abolition-
ists, and the letters reveal her major role in keeping the paper afloat. She
acted both as an intermediary with Smith and as a tireless fund-raiser who
sought alternative revenue sources for Douglass. Following Griffiths’s re-
turn to Great Britain in the summer of 1855, the Douglass-Smith corre-
spondence records the gradual deterioration of the finances of Douglass’s
editorial operations.
Now separated by an ocean from her reform partner, Julia Griffiths
emerged as a significant new voice in Douglass’s correspondence. She
sent him a stream of letters recounting her travels throughout England
and Scotland to set up female abolitionist societies to collect funds for the
Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Griffiths’s presence in Britain appears to have
stimulated an increase in the correspondence received from abolitionists
whom Douglass had met during his visit there in the mid-1840s.
In 1855, Douglass published his second of three autobiographies, My
Bondage and My Freedom. His correspondence contains interesting de-
tails on the book’s composition, the praise he received from readers, and
his efforts to expand its sales. A great deal of Douglass’s surviving cor-
respondence documents the intense lecturing schedule he maintained on
behalf of the abolitionist cause. He recounts frequent tribulations with
the nation’s inadequate transportation system, made worse by encounters
with racial discrimination. To friends, Douglass’s letters revealed that his
demanding lecturing tours habitually left him exhausted and hoarse—or
worse, seriously ill.
Other letters provide insights into Douglass’s attitudes toward causes
such as woman suffrage, Spiritualism, and hydropathy. In 1858, Douglass
wrote a letter to the Rochester press declaring that he had never endured
more public opposition in his adopted hometown than when he spoke at a
woman suffrage event there with Susan B. Anthony. The next year, a long-
time Rochester abolitionist friend, Amy Post, wrote Douglass to appeal
that he keep an open mind about the spiritualism she and her husband,
Isaac, had embraced. Another abolitionist, James Catlin, counseled Doug-
lass on the superiority of water cures to the medicines prescribed by the
physicians of the era.
Douglass’s correspondence displays his leading role in trying to
unite northern free blacks in a national council to demand equal rights.
Many letters expose the controversy that occurred when Douglass’s at-
tempts to create a manual-labor college for African American students
went aground after Harriet Beecher Stowe failed to raise her anticipated
share of the funds for the project. For the next several years, letters docu-
ment the bitter infighting in black circles, which intensified after Doug-
lass’s former editorial associate Martin Delany began to promote African
emigration; it continued until the decade’s end, when the Haitian govern-
ment attempted to recruit free American blacks to emigrate. Many other
letters from the 1850s recount the numerous obstacles that free African
Americans encountered in economic life, employment, and politics. In
letters addressed to Douglass as a newspaper editor and in private cor-
respondence, disputes over colonization, education, religion, temperance,
and economic opportunity were as common as discussions of antislavery
tactics. In the late 1850s, the focus of much of Douglass’s correspondence
with other black leaders shifted to discussing efforts to obtain equal rights
in the northern states.
Among his white correspondents, Douglass demonstrated the highest
degree of intimacy with Gerrit Smith. He wrote Smith often while the lat-
ter was serving a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Smith’s
brief tenure there coincided with the debates over the Kansas-Nebraska
Act, which rejuvenated northern moderate antislavery sentiment. Doug-
lass corresponded with several leaders of the newly founded Republican
party, including William H. Seward and Charles Sumner. Such letters re-
veal Douglass, and many other black abolitionists, as wavering in their
support between Smith’s radical political abolitionists and the Republi-
cans in both the 1856 and 1860 presidential campaigns and the 1858 New
York state elections. Many letters display severe disappointment that most
northern whites were content to halt slavery’s expansion rather than force
its end in the southern states.
Such sentiment helps explain Douglass’s move in the 1850s toward
the use of violent antislavery tactics. Several letters in this volume recount
details of the Underground Railroad aiding slaves to escape, which in-
clude the use of force to resist attempts by authorities to return runaways
to their owners. In often cryptically worded correspondence, Douglass
and other “operators” reveal a highly organized network used to hasten
runaway slaves to safer locations. John Brown and other correspondents
provided reports directly from the Kansas Territory on the intensifying
free-state struggle there. Given the conspiratorial nature of the event, only
a few tantalizing hints regarding the Harpers Ferry raid are hidden in this
correspondence. Following that bloody encounter, several letters between
Douglass and other abolitionists recount his hasty flight out of the country
to evade arrest for his assistance to Brown.
Douglass’s correspondence reveals that he was unhappy with the
tepid antislavery position of Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party
during the 1860 election campaign and even following secession and the
start of the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation pleased Douglass,
and several private meetings with the president caused some improvement
in their relationship, but his letters document that Douglass still supported
the abortive efforts to replace Lincoln with a different Republican presi-
dential candidate in 1864.
A large number of letters during the war years detail Douglass’s ac-
tivities as a recruiter of African Americans for the Union army. These
letters display Douglass’s anger when the federal government reneged on
its promise to give him an officer’s commission, ultimately causing his
resignation. Despite this grievance, two of Douglass’s three sons entered
Union army ranks. Lewis H. Douglass’s letters to his father provide in-
teresting accounts of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment,
including the unit’s participation in the calamitous assault on Fort Wagner
in South Carolina in July 1864. Charles R. Douglass sent his father letters
recounting the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment’s action in combat
before Petersburg, Virginia, and as guard troops for Confederate prison-
ers of war in Maryland. At the war’s end, Lewis sent his father word that
he had managed to locate several relatives in Talbot County, Maryland,
with whom the elder Douglass had had no contact for a quarter century.
Letters from other Douglass children also play an interesting part in
this volume. Only a single letter from his youngest daughter, Annie, who
died in 1860, has survived, but her older sister Rosetta kept her father well
informed about her education and the start of her teaching career. The lat-
ter’s letters, in particular, provide valuable observations on issues of class
and color inside the African American community. A different insight
into Douglass’s family life comes from letters from Ottilie Assing, the
German immigrant journalist who became his intimate confidante. Such
familial and other personal letters play a much larger role in Douglass’s
correspondence in the three remaining volumes of this series.
The conclusion of the second volume of the Correspondence Series
brings Douglass to a critical moment in his own life as well as in the his-
tory of the antislavery movement and the nation itself. The end of slavery
and the Civil War in 1865 promised a new day for African Americans.
Future volumes will reveal that both Douglass’s public career and the
struggle for racial justice in the United States were far from over.
Y7271-Douglass_9780300218305.indb xxvi 1/26/18 9:41 AM
Timeline of Douglass’s Life
January
March
6-8 July
November
Winter
1854
10-11 May
Y7271-Douglass_9780300218305.indb xxvii
1853
Published his novella “The Heroic Slave,” a fictional
account of Madison Washington, the leader of the
1841 Creole slave-ship mutiny. Story is included in
Autographs for Freedom, a collection of antislavery
writings edited by Julia Griffiths and sold to raise
funds for Frederick Douglass’ Paper.
Visited Harriet Beecher Stowe at her home in Ando-
ver, Massachusetts, and enlisted her support for his
plan to establish an industrial school to train black
artisans.
Attended Colored National Convention in Rochester,
New York. Criticized by Charles R. Remond and other
black leaders for his industrial school proposal on the
grounds that the school would promote segregation.
Attacked by Wendell Phillips for having criticized the
unorthodox religious views of some abolitionists, fur-
ther widening the split between Douglass and leaders
of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Garrison’s Liberator alluded to Griffiths having
caused “much unhappiness” in the Douglass house-
hold; Douglass attacked Garrison in Frederick Doug-
lass’ Paper for involving his family in a public contro-
versy and accused him of believing that blacks were
inferior to whites; Garrison responded in the Libera-
tor, charging Douglass with “apostasy,” “defamation,”
and “treachery.”
1854
Attended the anniversary meeting of both the Ameri-
can Anti-Slavery Society and its rival, the American
and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.
xxvii
1/26/18 9:41 AM
xxviii
12 July
7 August
16 February
19 March
Mid-June
26—28 June
August
16—18 October
c. 21 February—
13 March
28-29 May
Summer
July
Y7271-Douglass_9780300218305.indb xxviii
TIMELINE OF DOUGLASS’S LIFE
After significant research and preparation, delivered
his widely reported address on ethnology at the West-
ern Reserve College in Hudson, Ohio.
Political mentor Gerrit Smith resigned his seat in the
House of Representatives out of frustration with the
legislative process.
1855
Addressed an audience, including many influen-
tial New York political leaders, in the state assembly
building in Albany.
Delivered his famous lecture “The Anti-Slavery
Movement” to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery
Society.
Julia Griffiths left Rochester to return to Great Britain.
In the company of Gerrit Smith, John Brown, James
McCune Smith, William Goodell, and many other
militant abolitionists, black and white, helped found
the Radical Abolitionist party at a convention in Syra-
cuse, New York.
Published his second autobiography, My Bondage and
My Freedom.
Attended Colored National Convention in Philadel-
phia, where he expressed disappointment at the small
amount of funds raised by Harriet Beecher Stowe for
the proposed industrial college.
1856
Lecture tour of Ohio netted Douglass a sorely needed
$500 for his newspaper.
After considerable urging by Gerrit Smith, attended
the Radical Abolitionist party’s nominating conven-
tion in Syracuse.
With his newspaper deeply in debt, explored the pos-
sibility of a merger with William Goodell’s Radical
Abolitionist.
Met the German immigrant journalist Ottilie Assing
for the first time.
1/26/18 9:41 AM
TIMELINE OF DOUGLASS’S LIFE xxix
15 August
late August—
early September
1 October
7 December
14 May
3 August
late January—
early February
14 May
June
2 August
7 October
February
Y7271-Douglass_9780300218305.indb xxix
Editorially endorsed the Republican party’s presiden-
tial ticket of John C. Frémont and William Dayton as
the most electable antislavery ticket.
Campaigned for the Republican presidential ticket in
Ohio.
Authored resolutions at the Jerry Rescue Anniversary
Celebrations in Syracuse, which were widely inter-
preted as endorsing violent antislavery tactics.
Visited by John Brown in Rochester.
1857
Addressed an anniversary meeting of the American
Abolition Society in New York City, condemning the
recent Dred Scott Supreme Court ruling.
Made the principal address at the West Indian Eman-
cipation Day celebration in Canandaigua, New York,
and published his speech, together with his May ad-
dress on Dred Scott, in a pamphlet.
1858
John Brown resided at Douglass’s Rochester home for
three weeks, planning his raid on Harpers Ferry.
Attended the National Women’s Rights Convention in
New York City.
Launched a new periodical, the Douglass’ Monthly,
aimed largely at British readers.
Injured when a platform collapsed while delivering
speech at the West Indian Emancipation Day Celebra-
tion in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Presided over an anti-capital-punishment rally in
Rochester to protest the execution of Ira Stout, a con-
victed murderer.
1859
Delivered the lecture “Self-Made Man” for the first of
over fifty times during his career while on a speaking
tour of Illinois and Wisconsin.
1/26/18 9:41 AM
xxx
12 May
19-21 August
4 October
19—21 October
12 November
24 November-—
c. 15 January 1860
20 January—
29 March
February—
March
13 March
Mid-April
19 September
c. 2 October
November—
April 1861
3 December
Y7271-Douglass_9780300218305.indb xxx
TIMELINE OF DOUGLASS’S LIFE
Delivered a public eulogy for the antislavery jurist
William Jay in New York City.
Met with John Brown at Chambersburg, Pennsylva-
nia, but did not join the plot to attack the Harpers
Ferry Arsenal.
Wrote a public letter to his old master Hugh Auld,
revealing his recent reunion with the latter’s niece,
Amanda Auld Sears.
Following the Harpers Ferry raid, Douglass fled from
Philadelphia to Rochester and finally to Canada.
Sailed from Quebec and then on to Great Britain for
safety because of his prior close connections with the
head plotter, John Brown.
Used the home of Julia Griffiths Crofts in Halifax as
his base for an extensive lecturing campaign across
central and northern England.
1860
Lectured mainly in Scotland, defending John Brown’s
actions.
Engaged in public controversy in Scotland with the
British Garrisonian George Thompson over conflict-
ing views on the standing of slavery under the U.S.
Constitution.
Daughter Annie Douglass died.
Returned to the United States, arriving in Portland,
Maine.
Having endorsed the Radical Abolitionist Gerrit Smith
for president the preceding month, attended a conven-
tion in Worcester, Massachusetts, organized by Ste-
phen S. Foster, in unsuccessful bid to win their back-
ing for Smith.
Campaigned extensively in western New York in sup-
port of a state equal suffrage referendum.
Considered visiting Haiti to explore its suitability as
an emigration site for American free blacks.
Participated in a Boston commemoration of the death
of John Brown, which was disrupted by mob assault.
1/26/18 9:41 AM
TIMELINE OF DOUGLASS’S LIFE xxxi
1861
April
Civil War began with an attack on Fort Sumter by
Confederate forces; Douglass denounced secession
but called on the Lincoln administration to make the
goal of the war emancipation as well as reunion.
May—June
Lectured on many Sunday afternoons on the prog-
ress of the war in Rochester’s Spring Street A.M.E.
Church, critical of Lincoln for not taking stronger an-
tislavery action.
3 December
Delivered his “Pictures and Progress” lyceum lecture
to the Parker Fraternity Course in Boston, initiating a
new dimension in his public speaking.
1862
5 February
Lectured in a series sponsored by the Emancipation
League of Boston, calling on the federal government
to enlist black soldiers as means of facilitating a Union
victory.
August—
September
Publicly opposed proposals to colonize American
blacks in Central America advocated by Senator
Samuel S. Pomeroy of Kansas and Montgomery Blair,
U.S. postmaster general.
1 September
After passing her qualifying examinations, Doug-
lass’s daughter Rosetta began teaching in Salem, New
Jersey.
22 November
His “The Slave’s Appeal to Great Britain” was pub-
lished in the New York Independent to counter pro-
Confederate propaganda there.
31 December
Attended a celebration in Boston for the issuance of
the Emancipation Proclamation.
1863
February
Began recruiting free black Union soldiers for the
state of Massachusetts. His sons Lewis and Charles
are among his first recruits.
18 May
Attended the presentation of colors by Governor John
A. Andrew to the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry
Regiment in Readville.
Y7271-Douglass_9780300218305.indb xxxi 1/26/18 9:41 AM
xxxii TIMELINE OF DOUGLASS'S LIFE
18 July Son Lewis participated in the failed assault on Fort
Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina.
1 August Resigned as an army recruiter after protesting the lack
of equal pay and promotion opportunities given black
Union soldiers.
10 August Had interviews with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
and President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C.
Mid-August Returned to Rochester and issued the valedictory is-
sue of the Douglass’ Monthly in anticipation of re-
ceiving a military commission, which never arrived.
Late September—
Mid-October In the company of Ottilie Assing, made daily visits to
son Lewis in New York City hospital during his recu-
peration from war injuries.
24 December Daughter Rosetta married Nathan Sprague.
1864
May Son Charles saw combat with the Fifth Massachusetts
Cavalry Regiment in the Bermuda Hundred Cam-
paign in Virginia.
22 May Signed a public call for a convention to replace Lin-
coln as Republican presidential candidate in 1864.
19 August Met with President Lincoln in the White House, to
discuss means to recruit more slaves to run away from
Southern masters and enlist in the Union army.
4-6 October Presided at the National Convention of Colored Men
in Syracuse and gave a lukewarm endorsement to Lin-
coln’s reelection as preferable to a Democrat regain-
ing the White House.
17-29 November
Delivered a series of public lectures in his old home-
town of Baltimore, highlighted by a reunion with his
long-separated sister Eliza Bailey Mitchell.
1865
4 March Attended Lincoln’s second inauguration in Washing-
ton, D.C.
15 April Addressed a memorial meeting in Rochester for the
assassinated President Lincoln.
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TIMELINE OF DOUGLASS’S LIFE xxxiii
9 May Attended the American Freedmen’s Aid Union anni-
versary in New York City and argued that equal rights
should be the group’s principal goal.
10 May Attended the annual meeting of the American Anti-
Slavery Society and argued against the organization’s
dissolution, which Garrison had proposed.
June Son Lewis visited St. Michaels, Maryland, and re-
established Douglass’s contact with many family
members separated by slavery.
August—
October Entered a public controversy with fellow blacks Wil-
liam J. Wilson and Henry Highland Garnet by oppos-
ing the efforts of the Colored People’s Educational
Monument Association to establish a school for the
children of freedmen in Washington as a memorial to
Lincoln.
29 September Honored guest at the opening dedication of the Doug-
lass Institute in Baltimore.
Y7271-Douglass_9780300218305.indb xxxiii
1/26/18 9:41 AM
Gerrit Smith, c. 1855—65.
Courtesy of the Library
of Congress Prints and
Photographs Division. [LC-
DIG-cwpbh-026372].
Rosetta Douglass, n.d.
Courtesy of the National Park
Service, Frederick Douglass
National Historic Site, Wash-
ington, D.C., FRDO 4812.
Y7271-Douglass_9780300218305.indb xxxiv 1/26/18 9:41 AM
Amy Post, n.d.
Courtesy of the Depart-
ment of Rare Books,
Special Collections and
Preservation, Univer-
sity of Rochester River
Campus Libraries.
Y7271-Douglass_9780300218305.indb xxxv
John Brown, n.d.
Courtesy of the Library of
Congress Prints and Photographs
Division. [LC-USZ62-106337].
1/26/18 9:41 AM
Nou
George Luther Stearns, 1855.
Courtesy of the Boyd B. Stut-
ler Collection, West Virginia
State Archives.
Y7271-Douglass_9780300218305.indb xxxvi
Abraham Lincoln, 1865.
Photograph by Alexander
Gardner. Courtesy of the
Library of Congress Prints
and Photographs Division.
[LC-DIG-ppmsca-19208].
1/26/18 9:41 AM
Charles R. Douglass in uniform,
c. 1864-1865. Courtesy of the
Moorland-Spingarn Research
Center, Howard University
Archives, Howard University,
Washington, D.C.
Lewis H. Douglass in uniform,
c. 1864-1865. Courtesy of the
Moorland-Spingarn Research
Center, Howard University
Archives, Howard University,
Washington, D.C.
Y7271-Douglass_9780300218305.indb = xxxvii
1/26/18 9:41 AM
Lincoln’s second inauguration, 1865. Courtesy of the Library of
Congress Prints and Photographs Division. [LC-DIG-npcc-29803].
Frederick Douglass, c. 1860. Unidentified artist. Salted paper
print. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
iil
Y7271-Douglass_9780300218305.indb xxxviii 1/26/18 9:41 AM