FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO ANNA E. DICKINSON

Rochester, [N.Y.] 21 May 1867.

MY DEAR FRIEND ANNA.

I was delighted to find your note¹This letter has not been located. on arriving home a few days ago. I got
home quite too late to comply with your kind request to speak for our
friend Mr. Pugh²Thomas B. Pugh (1829–84), who served as Anna Dickinson’s lecture manager in this period, complained to the press that his client “has no idea of the value of money.” Pugh oversaw a “Star Course” of lectures at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music, which regularly featured Dickinson. He also booked lectures for her around the nation, but the two often quarreled over schedules and fees. Dickinson later moved to James Redpath’s Boston Lyceum Bureau, but had difficulties with her new agents over financial arrangements. Douglass refused to speak at the Philadelphia Academy of Music because of its discriminatory policies toward African Americans. In a letter to Pugh, Douglass complained that the academy and the city of Philadelphia stood “almost alone in the intensity of its wolfish hate and snobbish pride of race.” Douglass to Thomas B. Pugh, 17 November 1870, Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC01954; Philadelphia , 10 June 1884; Gallman, , 66–68; Chester, , 109.—for whom you say so many warm and characteristic
words. I will know full what to do if ever that Gentleman shall call upon
me at a time when I can come. The thought of being cared for at 1710³Dickinson’s Philadelphia residence at this time was at 1710 Locust Street, an expensive rented townhouse. Chester, , 66.
does me good at this distance. Your bright sister—and blessed mother⁴Mary Edmundson Dickinson and Susan Dickinson. are
among my constant companions—and yourself the world would not allow
me to forget if I wanted to. How gloriously—and beautifully Phillips⁵Born and raised in Boston and educated at Harvard, Wendell Phillips (1811–84) was one of the most prominent advocates of reform in the nineteenth century. In 1837 the young Phillips distinguished himself by denouncing the murder of the abolitionist editor Elijah Lovejoy. Active in the American Anti-Slavery Society, Phillips tended to support, but did not completely adhere to, William Lloyd Garrison’s brand of nonpolitical, disunionist abolitionism. For example, as a delegate to the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840, Phillips agreed with Garrison that female delegates should be seated, but disagreed with him on nonresistance to slavery. Following the Civil War, Phillips became devoted to a number of reforms, including prohibition, penal reform, concessions to Native Americans, woman suffrage, and the labor movement. Irving H. Bartlett, (Boston, 1961); Oscar Sherwin, (New York, 1958); James Brewer Stewart, (Baton Rouge, La., 1986); DAB, 24:546–47.—
Carried us around the past winter. I believe he put us into every Lecture!⁶During the 1866–67 winter lyceum season, Wendell Phillips traveled extensively, delivering a lecture entitled “The Swindling Congress” in which he attacked the Thirty-ninth U.S. Congress for its inaction in protecting freedpeople’s rights. In his lecturing, Phillips also suggested that New York should replace Republican U.S. senator Ira Harris with Frederick Douglass. New York , 7 November 1866; Burlington (Vt.) , 20 December 1866; William Carlos Martyn, (New York, 1890), 355–57.

Dear Tilton too—bright and young—brave and true, has left a shining record from St Paul—to Cincinnati⁷Although then the editor of the New York , Theodore Tilton lectured strenuously throughout the United States in the winter of 1866–67 as part of the nation’s large cadre of lyceum speakers. For example, Douglass, Tilton, Phillips, and Ralph Waldo Emerson all took part in the “Young Men’s Library Association Course of Lectures” in Winona, Minnesota, in early 1867. Douglass, Dickinson, Tilton, and Emerson spoke in the St. Paul Library Association course that same season. Evansville (Ind.) , 17 January 1867; Janesville (Wisc.) , 15 February 1867; Hubert E. Hoeltje, “Ralph Waldo Emerson in Minnesota,” , 11: 146, 156–57 (June 1930).—He enters now upon the stormiest period of his life.

I have come <home> anything than well—The strain upon me has
been pretty heavy all winter, and I shall require some weeks of quiet home
life before I shall be quite myself—

I am much pressed with invitations South—but I am not sure of the
wisdom of my going. Yet if the Republican Party shall see fit to send
me there as a it sends others I will go.⁸There was a press report in March 1867 that Republicans had invited Douglass to canvass black voters in Tennessee, but his only speech in a former slave state that year was delivered on the Fourth of July at Norfolk, Virginia. Boston Commonwealth, 30 March 1867; Norfolk (Va.) , 5, 8 July 1867; New York , 17 July 1867. Judge Kelly⁹Born in Philadelphia, William Darrah Kelley (1814–90) entered his father’s craft as a jeweler’s apprentice after a childhood education at a local Presbyterian school. Following a brief career in Boston as an enameler, Kelley returned to his hometown to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1841. Between 1846 and 1856 he served as a judge on Philadelphia’s court of common pleas. In 1860, Kelley, a staunch Republican and fi rm opponent of slavery, was elected to the first of fifteen consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. During the Civil War, Kelley adamantly supported the abolition of slavery and the employment of black troops; during Reconstruction, he advocated the enfranchisement of blacks and the implementation of harsh, punitive measures regarding the readmission of the Confederate states. Significantly influenced both by labor conditions in England and by the Panic of 1857, Kelley abandoned a free-trade philosophy and became such an outspoken proponent of high tariffs, especially regarding iron and steel, that he earned the nickname “Pig Iron.” Believing that high tariffs were necessary to foster a strong, diverse economy independent of Europe, Kelley spent two decades writing, speaking, and lobbying in favor of protection of American industries. Ira V. Brown, “William D. Kelley and Radical Reconstruction,” , 85: 316–29 (July 1961); , 3: 505; , 10: 299–300. and Wilson¹⁰Henry Wilson. are
both doing important Service. Its nothing against their speaking there
that they are only able to do so—under National bayonets—To have the
truth spoken there at all is great gain. How I wish that Richmond and
New Orleans—and Mobile could hear your own eloquent voice—You
have a mission—South as well as myself. I was still lecturing while you
were attending the Equal Rights meeting in New York.¹¹Neither Douglass nor Dickinson were reported to be in attendance at the convention of the American Equal Rights Association held at the Church of the Puritans in New York City on 9–10 May 1867. On its first day, the meeting passed a resolution appointing Douglass, Henry Ward Beecher, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to a committee to lobby the upcoming New York state constitutional convention, and elected Douglass one of the association’s six vice presidents. Henry Ward Beecher attracted much press attention for suggesting Douglass should be elected to Congress. The convention featured an acrimonious exchange between the black leader George T. Downing and Stanton on whether the latter would oppose African American male suffrage if not coupled with woman suffrage. New York , 11 May 1867; New York , 11 May 1867; New York , 11 May 1867; Dudden, , 96–99. Are you to be in
Boston on the 29th?¹²Douglass probably refers to the New England Anti-Slavery Convention scheduled for Boston on 29 May 1867. Neither Douglass nor Dickinson attended. Without leading woman suffragists present, the convention followed the lead of its presiding officer, Wendell Philips, in making black rights the abolitionists’ primary focus. New York , 30 May 1867; , 8, 15 June 1867; Dudden, , 100. I want to, but fear I shall not be able to go—I don’t
think our Friends Horace Greeley¹³Horace Greeley (1811–72), journalist, reformer, and Republican politician, was the founder and lifelong editor of the New York . Born in Amherst, New Hampshire, Greeley moved to New York City in 1831 and became coeditor of a small literary periodical in 1834. With the sponsorship of William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed, Greeley soon entered the field of political journalism, editing Whig campaign weeklies in 1838 and again in 1840. The next year, he launched the , which quickly outstripped its local competitors and attained a large circulation throughout the North. In addition to promoting a panoply of social causes ranging from Fourierism to the abolition of capital punishment, the Tribune under Greeley became the leading editorial voice of the Republican party during the 1850s. Openly hostile to abolitionism during the early 1840s, Greeley grew steadily more radical on the slavery issue, but his racial attitudes mirrored the ambivalence of many northern free-labor spokesmen. Greeley felt that blacks deserved legal equality and a fair chance to compete in the marketplace, but he doubted that African Americans as a group were capable of taking full advantage of such opportunities. Thus, during the 1840s and 1850s, Greeley worked to extend equal suffrage to New York blacks while nonetheless considering them an “indolent, improvident, servile, and licentious” race incapable of achieving social equality with whites. In his , Greeley claims to have rejected sending American blacks to Africa during the mid-1830s, but he in fact gave periodic support to emigrationist schemes throughout the antebellum era, clashing repeatedly with Frederick Douglass, James McCune Smith, and other black leaders over the issue. Horace Greeley, (New York, 1868); Glyndon G. Van Deusen, (Philadelphia, 1953); Ralph Ray Fahrney, (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1936); Eric Foner, (New York, 1995), 262–63, 297–300; , 7: 528–34. and Gerrit Smith did well to hurry
forward to serve Jefferson Davis¹⁴Jefferson Davis (1808–89), president of the Confederate States of America (1861–65), was born in Christian (Todd) County, Kentucky, raised on a plantation in Mississippi, and educated at Transylvania University and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. After serving at several frontier military posts, he returned to Mississippi and devoted himself to the life of a planter. A Democrat, Davis briefly served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1845–46) before resigning to participate in the Mexican War. He later sat in the U.S. Senate (1847–51, 1857–61) and, as secretary of war, in the cabinet of President Franklin Pierce (1853–57). Resigning his Senate seat on 21 January 1861, when he announced Mississippi’s secession, Davis was inaugurated provisional president of the Confederacy on 18 February 1861 at Montgomery, Alabama. He was formally elected president in October 1861. Although never tried for treason, he was a federal prisoner at Fortress Monroe for two years following the Civil War. After his release, Davis wrote an account of his career, , 2 vols. (New York, 1881). Clement Eaton, (New York, 1977); , 2: 98–102; , 5: 123–31.—He should have been left in the hands
of his friends—I would not hang him—or continue him in prison—but
he should not have the characters of such men to stand between him
and the stormy accusations of his own guilty conscience.¹⁵In August 1866, Gerrit Smith and Horace Greeley signed a petition to President Andrew Johnson, requesting that the imprisoned Jefferson Davis either be given a trial or be released on bail. Smith had also stated that Davis’s “very long confinement in prison without a trial [was] an insult to the South, a very deep injustice to himself, and a no less deep dishonor to the government and the country.” Greeley argued that the release of Davis would be highly useful in restoring cordial relations between the nation’s sections. The bond for Davis’s release, dated 8 November 1867, was signed by Smith, Greeley, and the New York financier Cornelius Vanderbilt. A heated barrage of criticism from northerners was directed against the three men. Davis was never tried for his part in leading the rebellion. Harlow, , 442–44; Foner, , 190. Belle Isle
and Andersonville¹⁶An allusion to the poor conditions at two camps established for Union army prisoners of war by the Confederates. Built on a small island in the James River at Richmond, Virginia, Belle Isle was operated as an internment camp for Union army prisoners from June 1862 to October 1864. Housed only in tents, as many as 6,000–8,000 captured Union troops filled the facility at one time. At the overcrowded and unsanitary stockade in Andersonville, Georgia, over 13,000 prisoners—ill fed, poorly clothed, and lacking proper medical attention—died between its opening in February 1864 and the war’s conclusion. Ovid L. Futch, (Gainesville, Fla., 1968), 37, 43; William Best Hesseltine, (1930; New York, 1958), 115–24, 137–38, 147–50.—with there horrible associations should fling their
ghastly Shadows full upon the head and heart of the cold blooded rebel
chief—and <ought> not to be broken—by the commanding figures of
Smith and Greeley.

I hope to see you sometime time during the Summer or early Autumn—but whether I meet you or not—you may depend upon this—I am,
always & every where—true to the great Cause of humanity to which you
are devoting your life—and that I am the Sincere & earnest friend—of
Anna E. Dickinson—Please remember me most kindly to your precious
Mother—and to your Dear Sister “Sue”—You have no reason to be other
than the shining orb you are said to be, while you live in the affection of
such a Mother and Sister.

The best blessings attend you—Yours &c.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

ALS: Anna E. Dickinson Papers, box 7,DLC.