The Altered State of the Negro: An Address Delivered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 5, 1866
THE ALTERED STATE OF THE NEGRO: AN ADDRESS
DELIVERED IN PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA,
ON 5 SEPTEMBER 1866
New York Herald, 6 September 1866 and Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 6 September
1866. Another text in Boston Daily Evening Voice, 7 September 1866.
After an evening of parades and public rallies, the New York delegation to the
Southern Loyalists’ Convention in Philadelphia met at 10:00 A.M. on 5 Sep-
tember 1866 in the reading room of the Union League House. As on the
previous day, General Hiram Walbridge presided over the gathering, which
also included delegates from other northern states. In their remarks, William
H. Burleigh, a longtime antislavery editor, and James Hamilton, son of the
first secretary of the treasury, both attacked Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction
program. After their speeches, according to the Philadelphia Evening Bul-
letin, Theodore Tilton “arose and stated that there was present a runaway
slave, who had been recognized by his mistress in this city” and called upon
the meeting to place the fugitive, Douglass, on trial. Former judge William D.
Kelley of Pennsylvania “arraigned the prisoner in a severely sarcastic
speech.” Proposing that the meeting “hear the prisoner at the bar,” Kelley
praised Douglass as “that adopted citizen of New York who, in his wonderful
genius, has taught the world such respect for the intellect, eloquence, heart
and patriotism of our constitutional people.” Lengthy applause greeted Doug-
lass when he rose to speak. When he finished, the meeting recessed briefly
and then reconvened to hear speeches from Governor Andrew G. Curtin of
Pennsylvania, Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, Generals Robert C.
Schenck and Benjamin F. Butler, and others. New York Tribune, 6 September
1866; Douglass to Henry Wilson, 12 September 1866, General Correspon-
dence File, reel 2, frames 202-04, FD Papers, DLC.
Mr. President1Hiram Walbridge. and Gentlemen—The circumstance alluded to this morning
by Mr. Tilton2Theodore Tilton (1835-1907), journalist, poet, and public lecturer, was born in New York City, where he attended the Free Academy (today City University of New York). As a reporter for the New York Observer he made the acquaintance of the Reverends Henry Ward Beecher and George B. Cheever, who were instrumental in his becoming, in 1856, the managing editor of the New York Independent, a popular religious journal. In the early 1860s Tilton tried to recruit Douglass as a regular contributor to the Independent and the two became friends. Tilton succeeded Beecher as editor of the Independent in 1862 and continued in that position until 1871. After the Civil War he also became a popular speaker on the topics of Radical Reconstruction and women's rights. His public career never recovered, however, from the notoriety he attracted in 1874 as a result of an unsuccessful lawsuit charging Beecher with committing adultery with his wife. Subsequent journalistic efforts failed, and in 1883 Tilton left the United States for Europe. He eventually settled in Paris, where he wrote essays and poetry to support himself. When Douglass visited Paris in 1886 Tilton served as his guide. On Douglass's death, Tilton published Sonnets to the Memory of Frederick Douglass (Paris, 1895). Chicago Open Court, 28 April 1887; New York Times, 26 May 1907; New York Independent, 10 December 1908; Douglass to Theodore Tilton, 22 November 1860, 2 December 1869, FD Papers, NRU; Douglass to Theodore Tilton, 2 September 1867, FD Papers, NHi; Theodore Tilton to Douglass, 30 April, 22 October 1862, 20 April 1869, 5 September 1882, General Correspondence File, reel 1, frames 718-19, 745-47, reel 2, frames 464-66, and reel 3, frames 627-31, FD Papers, DLC; Douglass, Life and Times, 430-31; Robert Shaplen, Free Love and Heavenly Sinners: The Story of the Great Henry Ward Beecher Scandal (New York, 1954); ACAB, 6: 120; DAB, 2: 129-35. and by our eloquent friend Judge Kelly,3William Darrah Kelley. is one that I can
scarcely be jocose over or about. The meeting with that young mistress4Although reported otherwise in some newspaper accounts, Douglass apparently encountered Arianna Amanda Auld Sears (1826-78), granddaughter of Aaron Anthony and daughter of Thomas Auld, during the opening day procession of delegates to the Southern Loyalists' Convention on 4 September 1866. Born in Hillsborough, Maryland, “Miss Amanda" lived with her parents at the elder Anthony's home at the same time that Douglass resided there as a young slave. Amanda’s mother died not long after the Auld family returned to Hillsborough. In Life and Times Douglass contends that after Auld remarried, his new wife, Rowena, treated Amanda poorly. Amanda married John L. Sears and moved with him to Philadelphia, where she and Douglass renewed acquaintance after one of his speaking appearances. She later moved with her husband to Baltimore but visited Philadelphia in September 1866 with her two children specifically to watch Douglass in the procession. Douglass remained in correspondence with her and visited her shortly before her death. New York Herald, 6 September 1866; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 6 September 1866; John L. Sears to Douglass, 10 January 1878, and Thomas E. Sears to Douglass, 1 February 1878, General Correspondence File, reel 3, frames 215-16, 225, FD Papers, DLC; Douglass, Narrative, 47; idem, Bondage and Freedom, 179, 187-88; idem, Life and Times, 111, 431-36; Quarles, FD, 232; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 30, 106-07, 168-70.
after absence from slavery of some twenty-five years, is one of the most
touching incidents of my life. It was the daughter of my old master,5Douglass refers to Lucretia Anthony Auld (1804-27), the daughter of his first owner, Aaron Anthony. Raised on the Talbot County, Maryland, plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd V, who employed her father as chief overseer, Lucretia was married in 1823 to Thomas Auld, captain of the Lloyd family sloop, the Sally Lloyd, and a boarder at the Anthony home between voyages. The newlyweds were still living with the elder Anthony when Douglass was brought to that household in 1824 at the age of six. Douglass later reminisced that Lucretia Auld was “very kindly disposed toward me" and that he “constantly regarded her as my friend." The Aulds later moved to Hillsborough, Maryland, where Thomas became a storekeeper and Lucretia bore the couple's only child, Arianna Amanda, in 1826. Douglass, Bondage and Freedom, 129-30; idem, Life and Times, 50, 79-80, 107; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 27-28, 30, 62, 87, 223. not my
young master6Thomas Auld.—a daughter from whom I received the first kindness that I
ever experienced from one of a complexion different from my own. It was
on an occasion like this:—I had been involved in a little skirmish with one
of the black boys on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, and I had received a heavy
blow which left this mark (pointing to a scar on his face) and went into the
house bawling as boys will bawl. I even too sometimes receiving a blow
from a colored woman because I had been in bad company. The mother of
the woman that I met in the street this morning called me in the parlor,
bound up my head, and gave me a Maryland biscuit, and told me to go out
with the other children.7In his autobiographies Douglass warmly recalled this incident, which occurred during his brief residence (1824-26) on Colonel Edward Lloyd V's Holme Hill plantation on the Wye River in Talbot County, Maryland. His childhood adversary was another young slave, Isaac Cooper, who struck Douglass with a small cinder fused with iron from a blacksmith’s forge. The wound was serious enough to cause Douglass to bear a lifelong cross-shaped scar on his forehead. Instead of attending to Douglass’s injury, Aunt Katy, the house slave charged with his care, lectured him not to play with the children of field slaves. Lucretia Auld, however, took Douglass into the family parlor and there cleaned and bandaged his wound. In Bondage and Freedom Douglass described Lucretia Auld as a “Good Samaritan" whose “kindness was healing to the wounds in my spirit, made by the unfeeling words of Aunt Katy." Douglass, Bondage and Freedom, 42-48, 129-30, 134-36; idem, Life and Times, 37- 39, 50, 79-80, 82-85, 107; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 37-40, 54, 81-82, 220. The speaker here gave a minute account of his
meeting with the daughter of his former mistress after he had not seen her
for many years. . . .†Here the New York Herald reads: “In conclusion the speaker said that this morning that woman told him that she came from her home here to see him walk in the procession. He then alluded to the efforts that had been made to induce him not to appear as a delegate, but that he would not abdicate his manhood in that way."
(Mr. Douglass proceeded to give a very interesting account of an
interview with a Mr. Sears,8John L. Sears (?-c. 1886) married Arianna Amanda Auld while he was a schoolteacher in St. Michaels, Maryland. The couple later moved to Philadelphia, where Sears was a coal merchant. Sometime in the early 1860s Sears settled in Baltimore and became a partner in a “Doors, Sashes, [and] Blinds" firm. By 1882 his business had failed and he appealed to Douglass for assistance in obtaining a post office job. Less than a year before his death Sears wrote Douglass requesting financial help for his children. John L. Sears to Douglass, 24 May 1877, 23 February 1882, 18 February 1885, and Thomas E. Sears to Douglass, 15 April 1886. General Correspondence File, reel 3, frames 129, 549-50, reel 4, frames 139-40, 312-13, FD Papers, DLC; [John W. Woods, comp.], Woods’s Baltimore City Directory. . . . 1876 (Baltimore, 1876), 565; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 169-70. and gave a very laughable picture of the
contrast in his appearance when he saw his young mistress and the time
when he was a slave. He had no difficulty in recognizing his young mis-
tress, although he had not seen her for twenty-five years.9The exact date of Douglass's initial reunion with Amanda Sears is uncertain but apparently took place between 1859 and 1863. In Life and Times Douglass states that it occurred “seven years prior" to the encounter in 1866, after he had “delivered a lecture in National Hall, Philadelphia." His only confirmed appearance at that location in 1859 is that of 18 October, after which he hurriedly left the city in the wake of news about John Brown‘s raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. After his return from England he spoke at National Hall on 14 January 1862 and on 6 July 1863. The most detailed account of the meeting, whenever it actually occurred, appears in Life and Times. There Douglass recollects that Sears was at first reluctant to permit an interview with his wife, whom he maintained the former slave would not even recognize, but “I pressed my suit . . . insisting that I could select Miss Amanda out of a thousand other ladies, my recollection of her was so perfect, and begged him to test my memory at this point." In an attempt to deceive Douglass, Sears invited more than two dozen friends to witness the reunion. Without any assistance Douglass identified Amanda “in an instant" from among a dozen women in a crowded parlor and the two were joyfully reunited. Douglass, Life and Times, 432-36. They have gone
to Baltimore since, but when the announcement was made that he was a
regularly elected delegate from Rochester, they came to this city and saw
him walk in the procession. Slavery is a deadening institution. There is a
spark of divinity that cannot be extinguished, [however], and there was still
between the old masters and the once slaves a feeling of love towards each
other. Captain Ane [Auld], his old master, had become convinced of the
evils of slavery, and abolished it before the emancipation was general.10Thomas Auld began freeing the slaves he had inherited through marriage from Aaron Anthony in the mid-1840s. Some of Douglass’s cousins, including Henry and Thomas Bailey, were manumitted outright. Auld sold Douglass's sister, Eliza Bailey Mitchell, and her two children to her husband, Peter Mitchell. Auld apparently emancipated his younger remaining slaves as they came of age. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 174. He
did not feel like talking in a jocular manner about the meeting with his old
mistress.
The time will come when all will rejoice at the altered state of the
negro, North and South. He had been approached by members of the
Louisiana delegation, not to walk in the procession or to enter the Conven-
tion, as it would hurt the cause and would endanger the election in one or
two of the Northern States.11While en route to Philadelphia to attend the Southern Loyalists' Convention, Douglass was called upon by a committee of other delegates from southern and western states traveling on the same train. The spokesman for this group, a Louisianian, claimed to have no personal objection to sitting with Douglass as a fellow delegate to the convention but feared the adverse public reaction. In particular, the committee warned Douglass that Republicans might lose several close congressional races in Indiana if a black man played a prominent role at the Philadelphia meeting. Douglass rejected all the delegation's entreaties and defiantly told them: “Gentlemen, with all respect, you might as well ask me to put a loaded pistol to my head and blow my brains out, as to ask me to keep out of this convention, to which 1 have been duly elected." Chicago Open Court, 28 April 1887; Douglass, Life and Times, 427-29; Quarles, FD, 230. They might as well ask him to put a pistol to
his head as to abdicate his manhood.)12From the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 6 September 1866.
He then alluded to the change that had taken place since he became
free. He had seen his old master rejoicing in his (Douglass’) liberty; that
Mr. Lincoln was not ashamed to invite him to Washington, and to take tea
with him also—the first instance in which a President was guilty of intro-
ducing a black man to the White House.13Douglass was the first prominent black American to be granted a personal presidential interview, meeting with Abraham Lincoln on 10 August 1863 and again on 19 August 1864. However, on 14 August 1862 Lincoln had invited a five-man delegation of blacks-headed by Edward M. Thomas, president of the Anglo-African Institute for the Encouragement of Industry and Art-to the White House in an attempt to elicit black support for voluntary colonization in Central America. This meeting, the first occasion when a group of blacks discussed substantive issues with a U.S. president, attracted wide publicity, although the reaction of black people to Lincoln's colonization plans was lukewarm at best. Basler, Collected Writings of Lincoln, 5: 35-53, 370-75; New York Daily Tribune, 15 August 1862; Quarles,Lincoln and the Negro, 115-17; idem, Negro in the Civil War, 146-49; Silverman, “In Isles Beyond the Main," 118. (Applause.) If God had not
been ashamed to make him, others should not be ashamed to own him.
Ashamed! ah, when rebel armies were in the field you were not ashamed
to call upon the black man for aid. You told us by that act that you would
interpose your power and save us from the consequences of espousing
your cause. (Applause.) You told us so, and you will do it. The American
people will do it. Andrew Johnson says he believes in the American
people—in their good sense, in their patriotism and their honor. I believe
in this more than he, for he is appealing to anything else but their good
sense and their honor. (Long continued applause.)
(Honor is a substantial thing. What would it profit the nation if it
gained the South and lost its own soul14Douglass paraphrases either Mark 8: 36, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" or Luke 9: 25, “For what is a man disadvantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?"—if it lose its own honor?)15From the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 6 September 1866.