FROM OUR BROOKLYN CORRESPONDENT.

Mr. Dear Douglass:—He who understands well the history of the colored people, and writes it, or so brings out their defections and excellences, that the one may be remedied and the other acknowledged and admired, will be greater than he who leads an arm to victorious battle. We constitute a medley of incongruities. Such justapositions; so paradoxical! Who can trace our meandering state? So much suffering, yet so much patience; such poverty, yet such honesty; so over-tasked, yet such capacity for endurance remaining; subjects of so much injustice, yet so obedient to rule and order; scarcely within the pale of law, yet so subjective to its severest mandates; without constancy, yet a life of continuity; in much want yet lacking in economy; without the power of husbanding industry, yet entirely industrious; regarded far below the peasantry of the country, yet, as a whole, eminently above the peasantry of this or any other country in the world; smote upon the right cheek, with what astonishing readiness to obey the Scripture injunction by turning the left also; as a class, depressed beyond measure, yet producing men for practical ability, sturdy worth, true reform-workers, without a parallel anywhere in the pages of the past or present, specially when we take into account all the circumstances attending us. Self-emancipated slaves are now found to preach the gospel, edit journals, write books, and all with an unctious effect, a skill, and a grace and beauty far surpassing their once-boasted masters. Indeed we look in vain for true literary merit among masters; we found it in abundance among slaves (God's noble men) once self-loosened from the grasp of these same white vmong this lat-illains. We fail to find even mediocrity a ter class, because, doubtless, the work of chaining their fellow's limbs, serves also to chain their own souls within, there to rave and riot till both soul and body, maddened with a consuming flame, shrink to the consistency of a devil, while the chatteled, once despised thing, disenthralling itself, often rises to the similitude of a man, and in soul enlarges and expands to the beautiful proportions of a full man--a centralation of the great God himself. Who has heard, in these days, a man calling himself the possessor of the bones and sinews of his fellow-man, producing a respectable book, or even a thought, having God and humanity in it? -- On the other hand, we hear of men having dashed aside their bonds, and with only such culture as of difficult and meagre obtainment, presenting such fruits every day. William Wells Brown, once a chattle, is the last of these examples, whose "book of travels" is just published, and, doubtless, will, as it ought have, a ready sale and careful reading. He is set down, I see, for one of the lecturers in the anti-slavery courses in Gotham.—Speaking of these Tabernacle lectures, one fact is worthy of note: At the door of the lecture hall, two of the stations have had Bronze substituted for Parrian; that is black for white; or, in other words, black men, receive your tickets, and sell your books as you enter the capacious hall, to receive the lesson in store for you.

Giddings has spoken in this place! John Quincy AdamsAdams, John Quincy

The eldest son of John Adams, John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) served as the American ambassador to the Netherlands, Berlin, Russia, and England during the early years of the Republic. He also held office as U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1803-08), secretary of state in James Monroe's cabinet (1817-25), and president of the United States (1825-29). From 1831 until his death, Adams sat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he opposed slavery and its extension and fought the gag rule on abolitionist petitions. In late 1831 he made his first anti-slavery speech on the floor of Congress when he introduced fifteen petitions from Pennsylvania Quakers praying for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Adams also defended a band of captured Africans before the Supreme Court in the Amistad case in 1841. Despite his association with the aboli-tionist cause, Adams said that he personally favored ending only the slave trade. Samuel F. Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Union (New York, 1956); Leonard L. Richards, The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams (New York, 1986); Paul C. Nagel, John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life (New York, 1997). was his subject; and me thought the spirit of the "Old Man Eloquent" hovered over him meanwhile. History, if she would not perish, and her best treasures be buried in the tomb of the past, must be true to herself and record this noble tribute to the memory of J. Q. Adams.

Were you ever in a menagerie? I know you have been outside, but were you ever really in—in the cages, in the den itself?—If not, bear with me a moment while I tell you I was, and a little of my experience there. Passing Broadway, when just opposite the Tabernacle, the name Meagher caught my eye. After a moment's hesitation, I entered. What a sight! Here were thousands of wild Irish vociferating and gesticulating with a fury; the wildest imagination could not portray, and I shall not attempt a description. With their long scraggy hair over their brows, and narrow faces, with huge projecting teeth and dull sluggish eyes, they presented to the beholder a collection, overmatching in apparent ferocity, any wild animals hitherto gathered in this country, or I venture to believe, in the combined Zoological Gardens of Europe. Of course there are some noble exceptions to this; some fine looking men; still it may safely be affirmed, that as a whole, the native Irish are the most inferior appearing class among us. But to this Meagher, who is, as you know, a colleague of the notorious John Mitchel, late of Van Dieman's Land, or better known as Alabama negro-plantation-Mitchel-Irishman. Meagher, a man of some brains and more pretensions, possesses all the wildness and ferocity of his class, tempered only by education and refinement, is well calculated to sway, as did O'Connell, the ignorant masses of his people. He is a speaker—a speaker of a peculiar kind.—'Connell, on this occasion, was his subject, the English his prey. Irish hatred is now to be called up. Watch him. Observe every movement of his face, every gesture, every expression. Now, he is the sly, cunning cat, sitting at the mouse hole; now—now to pounce upon his tiny victim; now he is the hyena, rampant with hunger and fury, at the grave's mouth, ransacking the bones of the dead found there; now the goaded bull prancing and pawing the dry ground, and raging and bellowing for an antagonist; now he is the lion shaking thunder from his mane; now the tiger; now the luring wolf with half closed eyes hard upon his scent; now he is the savage butcher, with sleeves tucked up, ready to strike his victim, the big, burly English bull. All these, in quick succession, would pass before you in the person of Meagher, while the lookers on, in their own way, applaud. How could they avoid it?—So wrapt their feelings, so complete his acting, so perfect and intense his performance. A low, savage growl, and then a wild shout, and a fearful rush, and then the cry is "the English, the English, the hated English; up—up boys, and at 'em!" Thus to me appeared Meagher and his last audience at the , and a fair exhibit of the wild Irish in America.

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. and Philo! what classic names! The mention of these reminds me of a newly-invented telegraph just put in operation between Benefit, near the the centre of Providence, R.I., and Northmore, near St. John's Park, Gotham. I, Ethiop, had the distinguished honor to be the first served on this time, and can say that the is new and novel as 'tis new. Morse is entirely eclipsed; Noah's raven, nor his dove, nor yet Horace Greeley's carrier-pigeon, so far from being any match, are not to be mentioned in the same connection. It is the combined invention of two highly scientific gentlemen, who will, doubtless, prove themselves worthy of the patronage of the colored public. Further particulars next week.—The year draws to a close, and Gotham is astir, preparatory to the holidays. I wonder if Philo intends paying New Year's calls in Providence, and if so, whether on the New York plan?

Laughter is the best I yet know of for the securement of perfect health and long life. Speaking of Communipaw, his last and greatest effort at Ethiop, is the broadest, and widest, and decidedly the best and funniest joke of the season; and has produced sufficient laughter hereabouts to cure, and has cured more diseases, and driven away more approaching symptoms within the past week, than has all the nostrums crammed into our mouths for that purpose by the doctors for the last three months.—Only think of it! Now everybody knows that it was I, Ethiop, who constructed him; (hold a moment, reader;) mentally and mortally, I mean. I who shaped his playful mind, curbed his wild and wicked fancy, lopped off his redundancies and turned him considerably from the paths of error; held him up to the admiration of your readers. And when he grew old, poor fellow, I it was who guided his feeble steps, and galvanized him often; and, finally, when he tottered to his resting place, in my anguish I was compelled to exclaim, "peace to his ashes;" and when he would not rest there, but, Phoenix-like, rose again, I recussitated him by calling up his slumbering spirit to join the new casement; and when arriving at a consciouness of his new existence, turned inside out, as he was after the fashion of Wapinummoc, I, Ethiop, it was who kindly turned him back again into a real Communipaw; and what is my reward? WHAT? I ought, perhaps, enlighten his now youthful understanding upon the meaning of aping. A word, then. Because the blacks perchance keep hotels, eat good dinners, or bathe, drive, fish, or have good music, (I wont say dancing till morning.) as set forth in that Bridgeport letter, still this is no proof that they are aping the whites. By no means. Because the blacks write plays, or read plays, get highly sentimental, get in love, even to the depth of Pauline, when dreaming of the beauties of Como, beside the Prince Melnotte, still those are no proofs of their aping the whites—Aping, my dear Communipaw, does not consist in doing the same as others: but in the motive that actuates the deed, as for example: Ceazar (though he could neither read nor write) took notes of his master's sermon simply because he saw the village Squire Deacon Grimes take notes. "Ceazar," said his master, who, after looking at his book and trammel scrawls, "this is all nonsense!" "Just what I thought all the while you was preaching it," said Ceazer. This was aping. On the other hand, Thomas reads Campbell's Pleasures of Hope to a large audience for his and their benefit,Pleasures of Hope (Campbell)

notwithstanding his white preceptor had done the same thing before—This was not aping. Is the difference plain enough now my dear sir? I own I did promise you that big pear from Taylor's window, provided you would be a good fellow and not fret. It is encouraging to state that the friends of Communipaw hereabouts rejoice very much as the theological—I may say saintly turn, his hitherto rather profane mind has of late taken, and which, among other things, may be set down to the earnest exhortations, mild persuasions, and gentle chastisements of his and your best friend.

Truly yours. ETHIOPWilson, William Joseph ("Ethiop")

William Joseph Wilson (1818–?), a free black man from New Jersey, operated a bootmaking shop in New York City as early as the 1830s. In the 1840s he became a secondary school teacher and later a principal of a black school in Brooklyn. He was an activist on behalf of black education, encouraging access and attendance, and even opened his own library. Wilson also campaigned to secure the franchise for New York African Americans. He served as a member of the Committee of Thirteen, organized by New York black leaders to stop enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the early 1850s Wilson’s letters appeared frequently in Frederick Douglass’ Paper, and Douglass referred to him as the newspaper’s “Brooklyn correspondent.” Wilson’s letters to the newspaper, published under the pseudonym “Ethiop,” were often part of an ongoing debate about the condition of blacks in New York and the United States. Wilson’s most frequent sparring partner in the war of letters was “Communipaw,” actually James McCune Smith, a prominent black physician in New York City. Carleton Mabee, Black Education in New York State: From Colonial to Modern Times (Syracuse, N.Y., 1979), 54, 63-67, 123, 129, 155, 158; Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1:79-88; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 87, 212, 229; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:144-45n. .

BROOKLYN, Dec. 20, 1854.