PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 8th, 1856.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ESQ.: DEAR SIR:—
I have been so completely absorbed with politics
for the last few months, or contributing my
mite to resist the aggression of Southern despotism
on the rights of the white man, that I
have had to defer for a while the duties I owe,
and the interest I feel in the welfare of the
black man, either in America or Africa. Self
preservation is the first law of nature, and the
spirit of slavery that has so long crushed the
black having now so boldly assailed the rights
of the white men of this Union, both North and
South, they are more to be despised than the
African slaves if they submit. In contending
there for free speech, free press, and free Kansas,
we are contending for our own rights and
liberties; and the question is no longer one of
the slavery of the black man only, but of the
white man also—and in this I trust our people
will see the true spirit of American Slavery.—
The same power that assails the freedom of
speech in the United States Senate, and that
drives the Free State men out of Kansas, is only
a legitimate consequence of that unbridled tyranny
that chattelizes the black man in Virginia
and South Carolina—and now the curse has at
last come upon us. But, sir, while I am so
absorbed with the state of things around us,
and upon us, of this startling nature, I cannot
be totally indifferent to the interests of our colored
brethren either in American or Africa.—
And believing that you would be interested in
a letter that I received a few days since from
Rev. Alexander Crummell, I enclose it for your
perusal; if you think proper to do so, you are
at liberty to publish it; either entire, or in
part as you may just best. As Mr. Crummell
is known to most of your readers, and I believe
highly respected by all, I thought it possible
that the publication of the letter of such a
man, might be the means of enlightening the
minds of many of your friends in regard to Liberia,
as they would not feel the same hesitation
in accepting the information thus conveyed in a
private letter from one in whom they have co[n]fidence
as from any authority connected with
the Colonization Society. Our excellent friend
the Rev. George Thompson, late of the Mendi
Mission in Africa, and formerly for many years
an occupant of the State prison at Palmyra,
Missouri, for the crime of aiding fugitive slaves,
informs me in a recent letter that he will shortly
publish a book on Liberia, which country he
has visited; and that he will thoroughly expose
the base and infamous falsehoods of Nesbitt's
book, which stated among other things that slavery
existed in Liberia, &c. In this, however,
Nesbitt only represented the shameful falsehoods
uttered, and published a few years since by the
Rev. John Rankin, of Ripley, Ohio; a man
who to be a Presbyterian minister; a
minister of the gospel of and with a
friend of the African race!! To this testimony
of the Rev. George Thompson and of Rev.
Alexander Crummell, even my critical friend
Dr. Delany cannot take exception, and I trust

therefore that he will not feel it necessary to
demolish you, should you conclude to publish
either, or both with such comments as you
choose. And further, as a matter of much interest
to myself and also I doubt not to you,
and your readers, I send you a pamphlet
published in Liberia, "A voice from Bleeding
Africa," by Edward W. Blyden, which I received
from the author a few days since. I think
there is not one of your subscribers that will
object to the sentiments there expressed. I
am sure Dr. Delany would not, and should you
think proper to publish this letter, I will say in
it to my good friend Delany, that as he was
pleased to call my attention to the chapter on
slavery in Liberia in his preface to Nesbitt's
book, that my only surprise was that a man
of his usual good sense, could have been so deceived
as to have lent his name to giving currency
to such palpable untruths; and, friend
Douglass, while on the subject, I desire to speak
as plainly to you, and express my surprise, that
you should have aided in giving currency to
such base slanders on your brethren, as you did
by republishing that chapter in your paper of
July, 1855, as it had not a particle of foundation
in truth, and was calculated to injure the
character of Liberia among those who should
sympathize with them both in adversity and
prosperity, and who will yet be, I trust, the
strongest and best friends of that flourishing
Young Republic.

Yours, very truly,

BENJ. COATESCoates, Benjamin

Benjamin Coates (c. 1808-87) mostly likely formed his opinions on slavery and abolition under the influence of his devout Pennsylvania Quaker parents. A successful wool merchant and a publisher, Coates was active in many antislavery organizations in Philadelphia, such as the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Despite his abolitionist connections, Coates argued that colonization was the best way to end slavery. From the 1840s until his death, Coates actively sought financial support from wealthy donors for colonization efforts in western Africa and started a correspondence with Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a successful immigrant to Liberia. In 1858 Coates published Cotton Cultivation in Africa: Suggestions on the Importance of the Cultivation of Cotton in Africa, in Reference to the Abolition of Slavery in the United States, through the Organization of an African Civilization Society, which advocated an increase in international cotton production in order to diminish the world’s dependence on cotton from the American South. Coates believed that with a decrease in profits, Southern slave owners would be compelled to free most, and perhaps all, of their slaves. Coates’s endorsement of colonization hurt his standing in the abolitionist movement, yet Douglass defended Coates, stating that he was a “humane and benevolent man” and “no more a negro hater than we.” , ser. 3, 1:538n; Ripley, 4:322. .