For Frederick Douglass' Paper.

A WORD TO 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. .

His explanation in Frederick Douglass' Paper, Dec. 15 th, to a sentence in his former letter, published in a past number of the above named paper, charging the "quarter boat of the Liberty Party" with "sheering off," &c., was quite unsatisfactory to me.— He says, "when the 16,000 Liberty vote dwindled down to about 50, it seemed to me that some one had cut the guy and spilled the contents of the quarter boat." Now, I admit that a great majority of the 16,000 once on the boat have left, or rather, that they have been swept overboard by the dreadful tornado of Buffalo, Baltimore and Pittsburgh. Many of this number were merely passengers—some were fortunate to float ashore and regain the [boat?]. But the crew remained faithfully at their posts, and navigated the boat through the storms of political apostacy and party strife, keeping its course in the pathway of truth—shunning the rocks and shoals of expediency and compromise. To-day this quarter boat is on the high seas of political effort, with full canvass, successfully buffeting every contray wind and wave. But I cease from this figure, and ask Communipaw if the Liberty Party has "sheered off?" If so, say when and where has it diverged from the correct doctrines of political righteousness? where or how has it rendered itself unworthy of the confidence of colored men?

On the contrary, has it not taken up manfully, and acknowledged every principle of equality attached to a common humanity, however unpopular it might be, and applied it to colored, as well as white men? Taking the Divine law as its guide, has it not even trampled in the dust all human enactments contrary to these principles, and declared them piracies on human rights? Has it not, in fine, laid the axe at the roots of every political evil in the land, as fast as that evil has manifested itself? "All rights to men," is its broad and expansive motto. And yet Communipaw says "there is no room for colored men on board" this boat. Now, is this so? Is he not mistaken? Does not the past testify that there has always been ample room for the colored man in theLiberty Party? and when he has ventured in, that he has been bounteously treated with the viands of equality and kindness? Let friends Douglass and Loguen answer to this. I know they will respond in the affirmative! Why is it that the great majority of colored men and women stand aloof from the only political party that embodies the true principles of their salvation politically? Finally, depreciation in numbers does not contaminate a party, nor disparage its cause. If there are but ten men that vote on correct principles in this country, no matter how many thousands may crowd the corrupt political organizations of the day—those ten are the majority in the sight of Heaven ! for God and Humanity are with them.

Communipaw says there are but fifty men in the Liberty Party of this State. What then? He will find them all true to the interests of the colored man—yes, even to death. He must have something more than numerical faith, if he ever is successful in removing the mountainous obstructions to the final elevation of his race. And that elevation can never be of a higher character than the principles of the party that achieve it.

Very respectfully, &c.,

W. W. CHAPMAN.

MINETTO, Dec. 23, 1854.