ELIZABETH THOMPSON TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

[n.p. c. 1879]

MY DEAR FRIEND DOUGLASS

Your letters are all received.¹Douglass’s letters to Thompson have not survived. You I trust you fully, so say no more
about that point.

I only want the money used to inspire others to do something for these
poor people—

I do think the South is more cruel and unjust than I ever imagined human beings could be, one toward the other. Do they ever realize how little
time we have to stay in this world, or how glad we may yet be of a favor
from some one of these poor creatures?

I should like to be there, but I am needed here, and I know I could be
of little or no use there.

Tell those poor souls that it is by sorrow & suffering that the heart is
made strong and self reliant as you and I know—

Now my friend don’t you be too sensitive about any thing I say or do.
You I believe in you more than I do in my self—you also know I
am not a diplomatist. Were I, our dear little Abby²Abby Hutchinson Patton. and I should get along
better than we do. She likes people to obey and I can’t.

You ask where they are I think they are in this big city of N. Y. but
I have not seen them. I love the dear little thing dearly, but I can’t dance
whenever every one chooses to pipe—I could not do this even for you—

yet I should be “awful glad” to see you and went to Saratoga last summer
more for the sake of seeing and hearing you speak than for any thing else,
but like others I was disappointed—you ought to have seen the people
leave the hall when it was announced that you would not speak, but that
was months ago and perhaps you have forgotten all about the [illegible]
time, place, or subject³Frederick Douglass was advertised as a speaker at the annual general meeting of the American Social Science Association on 12 September 1879, where he was to defend his position opposing the ongoing African American mass exodus from the South. After initially making his position public in a speech in Baltimore, Maryland, on 4 May 1879, he was asked to present a detailed explanation at the Saratoga meeting. Douglass accepted the invitation and prepared a well-researched address suitable for the group’s well-educated audience. When Douglass learned that the session was designed to be a point-counterpoint debate with Richard T. Greener, the first black graduate of Harvard and dean of Howard University’s law school, he developed second thoughts. Three days before the scheduled presentation, Douglass canceled his appearance, claiming that his duties as marshal kept him in the District of Columbia, and instead released a lengthy paper to be read in his absence by Professor Francis Wayland of Yale University. The New York reported “great disappointment” when audience members learned that the anticipated debate would not occur. , ser. 1, 4: 510–11; New York , 13 September 1879; Higgins, “Negro Thought and the Exodus of 1879.”

Now you be good and take me just as I mean and not as I happen
to say

With the kindest regard, and best wish

I am always

Yours most truly and sincerely

E THOMPSON

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 9, frames 265–67, FD Papers, DLC.