FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO J. SELLA MARTIN

Rochester, N.Y. 5 April 1869.

REV. J. SELLA MARTIN:

MY DEAR SIR:

I am just home from a tour of more than two months in the west,¹Douglass toured New York and Pennsylvania in January 1869 and then headed to the Midwest in February and March, speaking as far from home as Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Dubuque, Iowa. His last known address before returning to Rochester was at Birchard Hall in Fremont, Ohio, on 2 April 1869. Fremont (Ohio) Weekly Journal, 9 April 1869. and
have therefore, <have> only now, received and read your esteemed favor
of March 29th inviting me in behalf of the share holders in the paper proposed to be started in Washington, to assume the honorable and highly
responsible position of Editor in Chief of said paper.

The honor thus conferred upon me is most gratefully appreciated, as
is also the cordial and hardy manner in which you have communicated the
wishes of the share holders.

I hope sir, that you will acquit me of any desire to deal in merely
empty compliments. When I tell you that few things would give me
more satisfaction than to be associated with one so able, fearless, clear

sighted—and devoted to the highest interest of our newly freed, yet oppressed and slandered people, as yourself. With your vigourous mind—
acting with marked precision and almost magical quickness—with my
slower and duller vision but I hope equally accurate understanding—we
could I am sure, produce a paper, of which we need not be ashamed. I
have no fear of any want of talents—skill or purpose in myself or in you.
I am however not quite prepared to venture upon this voyage of Journalism—upon so slender a Bark as “” as a basis—and I
will tell you why. I do this with all deference and respect to yourself and
to the share holders—and in the fullest confidence that you and, they, even
if you cannot accept my views, will respect the sincerity with which they
are presented.

1. The paper in question should be a —superior in
appearance, and in character, to any paper ever published in the U. S. by
colored men. It ought not to be less than equal to the Newyork Independent
in size and quality of paper and press work—It should be larger than the
Antislavery Standard²The New York-based National Anti-Slavery Standard.—at any rate, and fully equal to that paper—in the
quality and in typographical neatness. The occasion requires something
that will command respect upon the start. The proverb that we should
creep before we walk³This proverb can be traced back to fourteenth-century Middle English. Jennifer Speake, The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, 6th ed. (Oxford, Eng., 2015), 338.—applies better to babies than to men and to newspapers. In regard to the latter, it is not only the first step that costs, but is
the first step that pays. You should put in hand of the colored man a paper,
which will upon first sight go straight to his heart, raise his respect for his
race, and kindle his enthusiasm. A small sheet imperfectly printed—upon
course paper—on the penny-wise principles, will not answer the purpose:
Such a paper would depress rather than elevate the spirits of our people. I
need not argue this point.

2dly In the present juncture of our relations with our white fellow-countrymen and to the outside World, when every triumph will pass for
its highest value—and every defeat will be magnified beyond measure to
our disadvantage, any paper started by the colored people, at the Capital
of the nation ought should be based upon conditions, not only favorable to
success—but upon such as will make success, almost certain.

3dly If the paper should be discontinued at the end of six months—or
if it should prove necessary to write for its columns begging articles to
keep it afloat, at that time or later, such a state of facts—would bring more
shame and mortification to our already sadly depressed people, than had
not the attempt been made at all.

4th All the colored newspapers, thus far have failed less for want of
literary ability than for business ability. They have died in their infancy
and from starvation, I am not disposed to add another to the already long
list of failures. Five thousand dollars now are not more than two thousand
five hundred were when Dr Baily⁴Gamaliel Bailey (1807–59) graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and worked as a doctor, teacher, sailor, and journalist in Cincinnati before a debate at Lane Seminary in 1834 stirred his interest in slavery. In 1835, he served as secretary of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. The following year, he joined James G. Birney in editing the antislavery Cincinnati Philanthropist, a newspaper of which Bailey became the sole editor in 1838. For most of the following two decades, Bailey continued to edit publications opposing slavery or its extension. Under his management (1847–59), the National Era, based in Washington, D.C., grew to a weekly circulation of over twenty-five thousand and was a leading voice of the Free Soil movement. Bailey’s journalistic career was punctuated by mob attacks on his press in 1836, 1840, 1843, and 1848, but in each case he persisted. Stanley Harrold, Gamaliel Bailey and Antislavery Union (Kent, Ohio, 1887); Stewart, Joshua R. Giddings, 41, 66, 69, 96, 152–54, 169; Sewell, Ballots for Freedom, 45–46, 73–76, 83, 90–93, 152–54; DAB, 1: 496–97. started the National Era, at Washington⁵Based in Washington, D.C., the National Era was an antislavery newspaper edited by Gamaliel Bailey from 1847 until his death in 1859. As an antislavery newspaper printed on slave soil, the National Era labored under the constant threat of mob violence; despite this, Bailey built a subscription base of over twenty-five thousand readers. Harriet Beecher Stowe helped its popularity when the National Era serialized her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin from late May 1851 through April 1852. Bailey’s moderate editorial style, however, drew severe criticism from abolitionists such as Douglass, who referred to the National Era as “powerless for Good” in 1851. Five years later, when Lewis Tappan suggested to Bailey that he add Douglass as a coeditor of the National Era, Bailey refused, citing his personal differences with Douglass’s radical abolitionism and the potential uproar in Washington over the appointment of a black editor to his paper. Harrold, Gamaliel Bailey, 140–41, 192; Duane Mowry, “The National Era, an Abolition Document,” Publications of the Southern History Association, 8: 462–64 (November 1904).—and he had $20,000 to begin with, besides a good subscription list.
He succeeded because he could keep his paper up long enough to inspire
confidence and respect. The same rules of success apply to white and colored people alike. They who can get up, will be helped up—and they who
cannot will be helped down.⁶Douglass repeats a line from his popular “Self-Made Men” lecture, which he delivered frequently from 1859 until the year of his death. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 5: 557.

5th Work that is done for nothing is generally worth the price and
seldom more. Every man employed on the paper should be made to feel
certain of its solvency and of success—and of his pay.

6th Now according to my figuring—it will cost about two hundred
dollars per week to publish and an addition of five thousand copies—so
that in ten weeks your five thousand dollars would be swallowed up—unless you were aided by prompt subscriptions

ALd: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 450–51, FD Papers, DLC. Also printed
in Philip S. Foner, ed., , 5 vols. (New York, 1950–75),
4: 213–15.