FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO CHARLES SUMNER

Rochester[, N.Y.] 24 April 1855.
HON CHAS SUMNER.
MY DEAR SIR,

There were two points in your address, which grated a little on my ear
at the moment, and to which I would have Called your attention imme
diately after the its delivery in Rochester had opportunity permitted.
The first claimed that mr GarrisonGarrison, William Lloyd

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) was the foremost white abolitionist of the nineteenth century and was credited with the discovery of Douglass as a speaker at an antislavery meeting in Nantucket in 1841. He began his career as an apprentice printer on the Newburyport (Mass.) Herald at the age of thirteen. Garrison became editor of the Newburyport Free Press in 1826, but the paper closed within a year. He was then associated with a series of periodicals in Boston that advocated reform before Benjamin Lundy offered the young journalist the opportunity to write for his antislavery newspaper. Garrison joined Lundy in editing the Genius of Universal Emancipation in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1829, during the last year of the paper's 1821-1830 run. In 1830 a libel suit against the editors forced the paper to close and landed Garrison in jail. After his release, he courted the wealthy merchants of New York and Boston in order to start the Liberator (1831-65), a weekly journal based in Boston in which he advocated an immediate end to slavery. Garrison's brand of abolition condemned any institution that would tolerate the existence of slavery, including churches, political parties. and even the United States itself and any scheme aimed at removing black people from the country. Instead, Garrison hoped to raise the public's awareness that slavery was morally wrong and thereby force its end in an almost millennial moment of emancipation. His approach appealed to both white and black antislavery advocates but earned him many enemies among those only moderately opposed to slavery and slaveholders alike. Seeing the need for greater action and organization beyond the pages of the Liberator; Garrison joined with other abolitionists to form the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831. Two years later he helped found the larger American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833 he established ties with English abolitionists after a trip to Great Britain, and he later brought the noted and notorious speaker George Thompson to the United States for a tour. Garrison also dedicated himself to women's rights, encouraging women to enter the public sphere by inviting them, via the Liberator, to form female antislavery societies. In addition to the thirty-three women's antislavery societies that flourished by 1838, Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society welcomed women as well as blacks into its ranks. However, female delegates were excluded from the World's Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 in London. The issue of women's participation in the antislavery movement and Garrison's absolute refusal to turn to politics to end slavery caused a division in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Brothers Lewis and Arthur Tappan, who opposed women's acting as speakers and who hoped to use politics toward abolition, broke with Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society, forming the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, or the "New Organization" in 1841. Garrison's ideas were so closely associated with the "Old Organization" that the American Anti-Slavery Society became known simply as the "Garrisonians." With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Garrison believed that he had accomplished his life's work and that of the antislavery movement. He then resigned from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery Society and closed the Liberator. Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, 4 vols. (New York, 188589); Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York, 1998); James Brewer Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison and the Challenge of Emancipation (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1992); John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1963); Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928-36), 7:168-72. originated the preSent Anti Slavery

movement—a claim which I do not regard as well grounded and I think
I have succeeded in Showing this in a lecture recently delivered in Roch
ester¹A reference to Douglass’s “Anti-Slavery Movement” lecture given on 19 March 1855 in Corinthian Hall, which was sponsored by the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. , ser. 1, 3:14-51. and in Several other places during the past winter. Mr Garrison
found the Anti Slavery movement already in existence when he stepped
to the Side of Benjamin LundyLundy, Benjamin

The child of New Jersey Quakers, Benjamin Lundy (1789-1839) was trained in the saddler’s trade. After living for a time in western Virginia, Lundy moved to Ohio, where he joined Charles Osborn in the publication of a pioneering antislavery newspaper, the Philanthropist. In 1821 he began his own paper, the Genius of Universal Emancipation, which he published first in Greenville, Tennessee, then in Baltimore, and finally in Washington, D.C. Lundy’s associate editor while in Baltimore was the young and unknown William Lloyd Garrison. In the early 1830s, Lundy championed black colonization in Texas, which he visited three times. He later supplied valuable eyewitness information about conditions in Texas to congressmen who were battling against its annexation as a Slave state. From 1836 to 1838 he edited the Philadelphia National Enquirer, an organ of the Pennsylvania State Anti-Slavery Society. In the last years of his life, Lundy moved to Illinois and revived publication of the Genius. Merton L. Dillon, Benjamin Lundy and the Struggle for Negro Freedom (Urbana, Ill., 1966); Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States through 260 Years, 1690 to 1950, rev. ed. (New York, 1950), 206; ACAB, 4:4; NCAB, 2:20; DAB, 11:506-07. ²The child of New Jersey Quakers, Benjamin Lundy (1789-1839) was trained in the saddler’s trade. After living for a time in western Virginia, Lundy moved to Ohio, where he joined Charles Osborn in the publication of a pioneering antislavery newspaper, the Philanthropist. In 1821 he began his own paper, the Genius of Universal Emancipation, which he published first in Greenville, Tennessee, then in Baltimore, and finally in Washington, D.C. Lundy’s associate editor while in Baltimore was the young and unknown William Lloyd Garrison. In the early 1830s, Lundy championed black colonization in Texas, which he visited three times. He later supplied valuable eyewitness information about conditions in Texas to congressmen who were battling against its annexation as a Slave state. From 1836 to 1838 he edited the Philadelphia National Enquirer, an organ of the Pennsylvania State Anti-Slavery Society. In the last years of his life, Lundy moved to Illinois and revived publication of the Genius. Merton L. Dillon, Benjamin Lundy and the Struggle for Negro Freedom (Urbana, Ill., 1966); Frank Luther Mott, , rev. ed. (New York, 1950), 206; , 4:4; , 2:20; , 11:506-07. in Baltimore. The second point was your
very gaurded disclaimer, touching the Social elevation of the Colored [il
legible]. It seemed to me that, considering the obStinate and persecuting
Character of American prejudice against color, and the readiness with
which those who entertain it avail themselves of every implication in its
favor, your remark on that point was un fortunate.

I may be a little SenSative on the Subject of our Social position. I
think I have become more so of late, because I have detected, in some of
my old Comrades, Something like a falling away from their first Love,
touching the recognition of the entire manhood and Social equality of the
Colored people. I do not mean by this, that every Colored man, without
regard to his Character or attainments, Shall be recognised as socially
equal to white people; who are in these respects Superior to him; but I
do mean to say, that the Simple fact of Should not be the criterion,
by which to ascertain, or to fix the Social Station of any. Let every man,
with out regard to Color go wherever his Character and abilities naturally
carry him. And further let there be no public opinion already to repel [xx]
any who are in these respects fit for high Social position.

For my own individual part as a Colored man, I have little of which
to Complain. I have found mySelf higher than I am placed politically. The most debased white man in Newyork is my Superior at the
Ballot box—but not So in a social point of view. In the one Case Color is
the Standard of fitness or unfitness in the other Character.

I thank you, heartily, my dear Sir, for honoring me with the opportu
nity of dropping these Suggestions for your perusal.

With the Spirit and manner of your noble address, I was not only
pleased—but profoundly gratified—and I thank God that, talents and ac
quirements So high as yours, are devoted to the Service of my Crushed
and bleading race.

Believe me, My dear Sir Your faithful[]and grateful friend,

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

ALS: Charles Sumner Correspondence, MH-H.