FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO ELIZABETH KECKLEY¹Elizabeth Keckley (1818–1907) was born to a slave mother in Dinwiddie, Virginia, just south of Petersburg. Her father was likely her master, Armistead Burwell. She was given as a wedding present to Burwell’s son and new bride, who resided in Petersburg, where she endured physical and sexual abuse. Keckley then moved with a new slave owner to St. Louis, Missouri, where she developed considerable skills as a seamstress. By 1855 she had earned enough money to purchase her own and her son’s freedom. In 1860 she left a brief marriage to James Keckley and moved first to Baltimore and then to Washington, D.C., to attempt to support herself as a seamstress. Her skills at dressmaking brought her many referrals in the capital, and the new First Lady, Mary Todd Lincoln, hired her as her dresser. Keckley became a confidant as well as a servant to Lincoln. In August 1862, Keckley organized forty other women and fellow members of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church to form the Contraband Relief Association. After Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Keckley escorted his widow to Chicago to resettle, but then returned to Washington. The two corresponded frequently, and Lincoln related her growing financial distress. Under an alias, Lincoln traveled to New York City in September 1867, and the two women undertook to raise money by secretly selling household items and many of the dresses that Keckley had made at the White House. Keckley then wrote about her life and relationship with the Lincolns in an autobiography, Behind the Scenes; Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House (1868), which generated controversy because of its descriptions of the widowed Lincoln’s desperate efforts to remain solvent. Keckley claimed that some embarrassing letters from Lincoln had been included in the book without her consent, but Lincoln nevertheless cut off further communication. In later years, Keckley moved often but taught sewing for a time at Wilberforce University. Some of her dresses were displayed at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Ripley, , 5: 248–52; Becky Rutberg, (New York, 1995); Lynda Jones, (Washington, D.C., 2009).

Rochester, [N.Y.] 18 Oct[ober] 1867.

MY DEAR MRS. KECKLEY:—

You judge me rightly—I am willing to do what I can to place the widow
of our martyr President ²Born in Lexington, Kentucky, Mary Todd Lincoln (1818–82) married the future president of the United States in 1842. During the Civil War, gossip circulated regarding her extravagance and thoughtlessness, and antiadministration newspapers reported on her alleged willingness to accept gifts and then ask the donors for favors for her husband. In 1861, Mrs. Lincoln naively befriended Henry Wickoff, a New York reporter who secretly recorded details of the Lincolns’ family life. When the published part of Lincoln’s first annual message to Congress before its delivery, a congressional investigation found Wickoff guilty of procuring the text; Mrs. Lincoln’s reputation was thenceforth stained by an aura of political indiscretion. Charges of treason, however, soon overshadowed all others. With six siblings and nine half brothers and half sisters, Mrs. Lincoln was, like many natives of the border states, closely related to men fighting in the Confederate army, as well as a comforter of their wives. She advocated on their behalf to her husband, although the president refused to grant substantive favors in the absence of Union loyalty. Besides general rumors of transmitting information to the enemy, Mrs. Lincoln was specifically accused of using her half sister Martha Todd White to send information to the Confederates. Both the Lincolns, in fact, had refused Mrs. White’s requests for an exemption from the requirements on transporting goods across Union lines, and both refused to see her at the Executive Mansion. The White House secretary Noah Brooks firmly defended Mrs. Lincoln’s loyalty. When the Committee on the Conduct of the War proposed an investigation of the rumors, President Lincoln allegedly appeared before it without announcement and gravely stated his certainty that no such relations with the enemy existed. During and after the war, Douglass unswervingly defended Mrs. Lincoln’s reputation. Ruth Painter Randall, (Boston, 1953); (New York, 1973); , 2: 404–06. in the affluent position which her relation to that
good man and to the country entitles her to. But I doubt the wisdom of
getting up a series of lectures for that purpose; that is just the last thing
that should be done.³In her autobiography, Keckley implied that Douglass and the Reverend Henry Highland Garnet had proposed a lecture series whose financial proceeds would go to support Mary Todd Lincoln. Keckley related that when she informed Lincoln of the plan, the former First Lady declined “to receive aid from the colored people.” According to Keckley, Lincoln later reversed her decision, “but as the services of Messrs. Douglass, Garnet, and others had been refused when first offered, they declined to take an active part in the scheme; so nothing was ever done.” Keckley, , 314; Rutberg, , 136–38. Still, if the thing is done, it should be done on a
grand scale. The best speakers in the country should be secured for the
purpose. You should not place me at the head nor at the foot of the list, but
sandwich me between, for thus out of the way, it would not give to
the idea. I am to speak in Newark on Wednesday evening next,⁴Newspaper reports confirm that Douglass lectured at the Central Methodist Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey, on the evening of 23 October 1867. The announced title of the speech was “Republican Government vs. The One Man Power.” The New York , a pro–Johnson administration newspaper, reported that Douglass had advocated African American suffrage and constitutional changes to curb abuses by the executive branch. The rebuked Douglass’s temerity: “Has it ever occurred to this excellent darkey that even all these reforms might fail to perfect the scheme of earthly governments, or to reconstruct human nature?” Newark (N.J.) , 23 October 1867; New York , 25 October 1867. and will
endeavor to see you on the subject. Of course, if it would not be too much
to ask, I would gladly see Mrs. Lincoln,⁵Neither Douglass, nor Keckley, nor Lincoln reported such a meeting occurring at that time or later. if this could be done in a quiet
way without the reporters getting hold of it, and using it in some way to
the prejudice of that already much abused lady. As I shall see you soon,
there is less reason to write you at length.

I am, dear madam, With high respect, Very truly yours,

FREDERICK DOUG LASS.

PLSr: Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 316–17.