FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO THEODORE TILTON

Rochester[, N.Y.] 24 April 1869.

MY DEAR FRIEND:

I am more than content with the use you deemed it best to make of my note.
Two heads are better than one¹This saying is first recorded in John Heywood’s collection of proverbs (1546). Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, 141. especially where yours is the other head! By
your statement I am left in a favorable condition before the country and before the Government. Your remarks have already begun their circuit: They
were in our paper this morning.²The pro–Democratic party Rochester Union and Advertiser printed a long article titled “A Mission for Fred. Douglass,” which criticized the Grant administration for not appointing Douglass minister to Haiti. The Rochester newspaper quoted Theodore Tilton’s editorial in the New York Independent, which claimed that Douglass deserved a seat in Grant’s cabinet. The Union and Advertiser berated Radical Republicans’ hypocrisy in proclaiming racial equality but not governing on that principle. Rochester Union and Advertiser, 28 April 1869. Greediness for office is not a desirable
reputation—but in order to avoid such a reputation I would not affect to
despise either the opportunities or honors of official positions. Your statement covers this whole ground—and no other word need be said.

My employment just now is that simple and health giving one which
first awoke the vigor that slumbered in the arm of Adam: I am a gardener. Parlour—Railroad— platform—life and labors—are anything but
healthful to such a body as mine—I have suffered more from the labors
of the past winter than usual—and I am now renewing my strength with
the spade, rake and hoe.

I will think of your kind offer again of a place on . That
is a great “”—and nobody should appear there—but on two conditions: 1st something to say: 2d ability to say it. For the present you had better let me attend to the onions:—and do some very needful reading: Something may come of this, but I had better not promise.³After writing frequently for the Independent during and immediately after the Civil War, Douglass did not write again for the periodical until 1892. New York Independent, 21 April 1892. What shall be said
at the annual Meeting of the American Antislavery Society?⁴The call for the thirty-sixth annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society to be held at Steinway Hall in New York City on 11 May 1869 was published in the society’s official periodical, the New York National Anti-Slavery Standard, on 24 April 1869. There really
seems not much to be said. Fifteenth Amendment is on its passage and is
in a fair way to become a part of the organic Law of the land⁵The Fifteenth Amendment, which enfranchised African American men, passed Congress in February 1869 along largely partisan lines. Many suffragists, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, had encouraged state legislatures to refuse to ratify the amendment because it ignored the demands of women for enfranchisement. When Douglass wrote Tilton, New York had just become the thirteenth of the required twenty-eight states to ratify. Opposition to the amendment was strong in many states, and it took another ten months to reach the necessary total. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish certified the amendment on 30 March 1870. William Gillette, The Right to Vote: Politics and the Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment (Baltimore, 1965), 73–76; Foner, Reconstruction, 444–49; James M. McPherson, The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP (Princeton, N.J., 1975), 13, 35–40, 98–102, 392; McPherson, Struggle for Equality, 301–07, 428.—Will it be
fair to assail Grant for all the murders which have taken place in the south
since the 4th March?⁶Ulysses S. Grant was inaugurated as president on 4 March 1869. In his address, Grant declared: “The question of suffrage is one which is likely to agitate the public so long as a portion of the citizens of the nation are excluded from its privileges in any State. It seems to me very desirable that this question should be settled now, and I entertain the hope and express the desire that it may be by the ratification of the fifteenth article of amendment to the Constitution.” Grant, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 19: 142. Had we better take up the cause of Cuba—and let
our war cry be “”⁷In October 1868, Cuban insurgents launched a revolt to free the island of Spanish control. President Grant was sympathetic to the cause of Cuban independence, but Secretary of State Fish opposed formally recognizing the belligerent status of the insurgency, for fear that it would jeopardize the ongoing efforts of Spanish liberals to set up a constitutional monarchy. The situation was complicated by the simultaneous Alabama claims dispute between the United States and Britain. In the latter, Senator Charles Sumner had vociferously denounced the British for recognizing Confederate belligerency, a position comparable to what Grant hoped to do for the Cubans. Grant and Fish were also undertaking negotiations with the Dominican Republic regarding possible annexation of that nation. The Cuban rebels quickly won over American public sentiment, and there were loud calls for Fish’s replacement. In June, the administration publicly declared sympathy for the Cuban cause, a decision that satisfied most Americans. Calhoun, Presidency of Grant, 154–64, 181–96.—and possibly annexation? What will Wendell say?⁸Wendell Phillips. My kindest Regards to Mr Johnson⁹Vermont-born Oliver Johnson (1809–89), an abolitionist and journalist, published the semimonthly Boston Christian Solider (1832–33) from an office and printing press shared with William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator. In addition to serving as a substitute editor for the latter paper, Johnson lectured for the New England Anti-Slavery Society. From 1837 to 1839 he lectured for the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society and sided with the Garrisonians on the rejection of political and religious means to achieve the end of slavery. In the 1840s, Johnson held several editorial positions outside abolitionist circles. He worked for a time as an assistant to Horace Greeley on the New York Tribune, briefly edited the Philadelphia Republic, and then edited the Practical Christian, the organ of the utopian Hopedale Community in Milford, Massachusetts. He returned to abolitionist newspapers as editor of the Anti-Slavery Bugle (1849–51) and the Pennsylvania Freeman (1851–53). In 1853 he moved to New York City to accept the post of assistant editor of the American Anti-Slavery Society’s National Anti-Slavery Standard. In 1858, after succeeding Sydney Howard Gay as editor in chief, he guided the paper through secession and the Civil War. At the time of this letter, Johnson was serving as associate editor of the Independent under Tilton. The following year, he went to work for the New York Tribune. Steven M. Raffo, A Biography of Oliver Johnson, Abolitionist and Reformer, 1809–1889 (Lewiston, N.Y., 2002); Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 2: xxv–xxvi; ANB, 12: 107–08; DAB, 5: 756–58; NCAB, 2: 319.—

Truly your friend—

FREDK DOUGLASS

ALS: Historical Manuscripts Collection, NNPML.