BOSTON, October 8th, 1855.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ESQ.: DEAR SIR:—The Whigs have been tampering with Mr. Rockwell, to see if they could induce him to accept the nomination of that party. Mr. Rockwell declines and says, "."—Mr. Rockwell now stands fair upon the Republican platform.

The Whigs hold their Convention on Tuesday, and after swallowing the principles of the pro-slavery Democratic rum party, nominated Mr. Samuel H. Walley, of Roxbury, for Governor, and Moses Davenport, (the rum nominee,) for Lieut. Governor. The Whig resolutions vie with the Administration rum party for villainy. They declare that "the Temperance Law increases drunkenness," and that "the Personal Liberty Law is a disgraceful enactment, which should be erased from the statute book, before collision with the Federal authorities and bloodshed shall follow any attempt to carry its provisions into effect."

The Know Nothings held their State Convention in this city on Wednesday, adopted the Springfield platform, denounced fusion and certain prominent Anti-Slavery men, and renominated Henry J. Gardner for Governor of this Commonwealth. Mr. Gardner, on being called for, came forward and made a speech, thanking them for the nomination, referred to his refusal to remove Judge Loring, his veto of the Personal Liberty Law, and his reception of the California cane, assailed some politicians who certainly enjoy the confidence of the people, which Governor Gardner, in his mushroom career, has failed to secure. His attacks at this time come with an ill grace, and he cravingly shows that lust for office, which has been so conspicuous in the conduct of almost all the leaders of the Know Nothing party, and an entire want of that high-minded and noble deportment, which should characterize the statesman who places the interest of his country above party. We repeat what we said in your paper some months since, that it is better a thousand times to have a sage old farmer to guide the ship of State, than a green gardener to cultivate the soil of Massachusetts. Thousands and tens of thousands of our fellow-citizens went into the Know Nothing party last year, for the purpose of breaking up the old political parties. In this they were partially successful, and now the Republican party, like the Phoenix, rises up out of the mass of ruins, and is destined to sweep over the free States, and elect a President of the United States in 1856.

What has become of "Philo," "Cosmopolite,"Bell, Philip A.

Philip A. Bell (1808-89) was educated at the New York City Free School and worked as an agent for the Liberator and at a variety of occupations in his youth. He was secretary of a January 1831 public meeting of New York blacks that protested against the colonization movement. In 1837 Bell helped found and edit the Weekly Advocate, later renamed the New York Colored American, which was an important forum for black opinion until its demise in 1842. In the 1850s he operated an employment agency for New York City blacks and was active in literary, temperance, and mutual relief societies as well as the antislavery movement. Bell attended many of the antebellum National Negro Conventions and lectured for equal suffrage for blacks. Moving to California in 1860, Bell briefly ran a real estate agency before returning to journalism, first as associate editor of the San Francisco Pacific Appeal, and later as owner and editor of the San Francisco Elevator. In the 1870s Bell was president of the Equal Rights League of California, a politically independent group that lobbied Republican politicians for better treatment of blacks. While still in New York, Bell wrote to the North Star under the pseudonym "Cosmopolite." New York Colored American, 8 December 1838; San Francisco Elevator, 12 June 1868, 11 January, 15 November 1873; William Lloyd Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization: or; an Impartial Exhibition of the Doctrines, Principles and Purposes of the American Colonization Society (New York, 1832), 13- 17; Penn, Afro-American Press, 32-34, 94-98; Robert C. Dick, Black Protest: Issues and Tactics (Westport, Conn., 1974), 84, 173-77, 267; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 20, 31, 95; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 113-14, 175, 195, 210; James A. Fisher, "A History of the Political and Social Development of the Black Community in California, 1850-1950" (Ph.D. diss., State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1971), 72-75, 97-100, 140-46; Freeman, "Free Negro in New York City," 35, 46, 128, 175-76, 237, 299; "Black Elites and the Draft Riots," New York Times, July 13, 2013. Autobiography, My Life and Times, Part 2 and "Communipaw?"Smith, 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. We have not heard from them, through your paper, for a long, long time. We suppose that they are preparing speeches to be delivered at the National Convention. We shall see what resolutions are introduced, and what speeches are made.

S.