FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO HENRY CLAY NAILL¹Henry Clay Naill (c. 1831–1911) worked as a surveyor before serving as a provost marshal for the Union army in western Maryland during the Civil War. Like his father, David W. Naill, he was elected to represent Frederick, Maryland, in the Maryland House of Delegates. Naill supported the Radical Reconstruction program, including the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Douglass endorsed his (unsuccessful) effort to obtain the Republican party’s nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in 1878. Naill was also a longtime member of the board of trustees of the Maryland School for the Deaf and Dumb. Seventieth Biennial Report of the President and Visitors of the Maryland School for the Deaf and Dumb to the Legislature of Maryland (Frederick, 1911), 20; Alan Friedlander and Richard Allan Gerber, Welcoming Ruin: The Civil Rights Act of 1875 (Leiden, Neth., 2018), 431.

Rochester, [N.Y.] 8 July 1869.

MY DEAR SIR—

It is hard to say no to any request that reaches me from my native State,
and therefore I say yes to your invitation to the Emancipation celebration
in Frederick on the 15th August.²As subsequent documents in this volume explain, Douglass did not speak at the planned Emancipation Day celebration in Frederick, Maryland. He received a telegraph, claiming to be sent from Naill, canceling the widely published event at the last minute. The press reported that many people in Frederick were disappointed by Douglass’s failure to arrive. Philadelphia Christian Recorder, 24 July 1869; Boston Commonwealth, 28 August 1869; NASS, 4 September 1869.

My home is a long way from Frederick, but that can be overcome by
ample compensation, say one hundred dollars. If that sum can be raised in
advance of my coming, I shall not be subjected to the necessity of taking
up a collection when I come, a thing that too often mars the public doings
of colored people and results in loss to their public speakers.

Respectfully yours,

FREDERICK DOUG LASS.

PLSr: Baltimore , 20 August 1869.