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 Lundy²The 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.