FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO WILLIAM PURCELL¹The Union and Advertiser, Rochester’s leading Democratic newspaper, had been edited by William Purcell (1830–1905) since 1864. Born in Covington, New York, Purcell rose from the position of delivery boy to eventually become editor in chief. He was active in local, state, and national Democratic party politics and an advocate of Irish causes. Peck, History of Rochester and Monroe County, 1: 193–94, 2: 783; Harvey Strum, “To Feed the Hungry: Rochester and Irish Famine Relief,” RH, 68: 3–22 (Summer 2006).

Rochester, N.Y. 29 April 1869.²This letter was published in the Rochester Union and Advertiser with the headline “Fred. Douglass and the Haytian Mission.” Rochester Union, n.d., reprinted in New York Times, 3 May 1869.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ROCHESTER :

My feelings are of little importance to the public, yet if they are made
the subject of public remark, you will agree with me that they ought
to be correctly described. You will therefore please allow me to say in
your columns, that I do not feel slighted by the present Administration
at Washington. I have neither sought, desired nor expected the Haytian

mission. No aspirations for the office in question have been disappointed.
The thing of which I have complained was a telegram, repeated in various
forms, from Washington, stating that FREDERICK DOUGLASS had written
to his friends at Washington that he would not accept the Haytian mission—that he could not afford it—that he had made up his mind never to
leave the country, &c.

1. I objected to this because it placed me in a false and ridiculous position. I am not so weak and foolish as to decline publicly an office which
had never been tendered me.

2. I objected to it because it placed me before the country as measuring my duties strongly by the one criterion of “dollars and cents,” and
gives an exaggerated impression of the pecuniary value of my present
vocation.

3. I objected to it because it represented me as being so absurdly patriotic that I would not leave the country for any purpose, however important, and because it was calculated to remove me from the list of colored men who would accept office tendered by President Grant. I am a
modest man, but am perfectly competent to decline or accept office, if
tendered, without the assistance of officious friends, who have presumed
to act for me in this instance.

Respectfully yours,

FRED’K DOUGLASS.

PLSr: New York , 3 May 1869.