MARTHA WALDO GREENE TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

[n.p.] 7 Dec[ember] 1876.¹Greene placed the notation “(morning)” following the date of the letter.

MY DEAR FRIEND

The morning’s news takes me at once to you in congratulations. What a
narrow escape our country & race, have made!²Greene refers to the contested victory of the Republican presidential candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, over the Democrat Samuel Tilden on 7 November 1876. The electoral votes of three states, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida, plus one of the three from Oregon, were disputed when they were tallied in Congress. The appointment of a fifteen-member electoral commission to investigate allegations of electoral fraud by both parties dragged the dispute out almost to inauguration day in March 1877. Roy Morris, Jr., Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876 (New York, 2003). Shall the very narrowness of the escape be our safety or our peril! You must be glad to be in
Washington this week to watch the chivalry of Congress, in spite of the
disappointment of not coming here. You not coming, is, I trust, only a
delay—for the F. R. S. want you whenever your other engagements bring
you near enough to permit you to come nearer,³In an earlier letter published in this volume, Greene tells Douglass that the Free Religious Association, a predominantly New England organization, desired a lecture by him. Martha W. Greene to Douglass, 14 March 1876, General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 815R–816, FD Papers, DLC. and this I hope will be
soon—All day yesterday I felt /Evening/ I was interrupted this morning,
and am to night in receipt of your welcome favor. I do not share your
convictions in regard to the Presidential probabilities, and believe you are
needlessly discouraged, but it may be because I know <am> so ignorant
of the real conditions. It seems to me the triumph of <the> Republican
party this time will be a guarantee for the continuance of its principles if
not its [illegible], and at any rate the is all we have to do with, and
with this secure we will wait the issues of the future as they come. And oh
this dreadful disaster in Brooklyn!⁴Greene is probably alluding to the Brooklyn Theatre fire, one of the most catastrophic events to occur in the city in the nineteenth century and the third-deadliest theater fire in American history. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, over 200 bodies were recovered before the rubble could be removed, and the final total was around 300 lives lost. The newspaper noted that the fire broke out in the upper “family circle,” the cheapest and most crowded seats. Those seated in that section were trapped, and their panic made escape impossible from the beginning. The bodies were reported to be in piles upon the floor, evidence of patrons trying and failing to escape the flames. Brooklyn (N.Y.) Daily Eagle, 6 December 1876; New York Times, 30 December 1885. Perhaps it is well at this exciting hour
that something gives change to the tide of rage which ebbs & flows in the
political sea, but what agony for those whose hearts were bound up with
the poor helpless ones—

I note every word you say—not less about poor dear Rosy⁵Rosetta Douglass Sprague.—why why
will women be such fools! but my dear friend you like me not as <a> nemesis, and it is not that I do not like you always as the merciful & the forgiving, but if you say truly that “we our personal interests, are and ought
to be of prime consideration” true , may require us to
defend ourselves against the opportunity of others to take advantage of

us—particularly from giving repeated opportunity, when once deceived
from being again deceived—I can see how hard it must be for you to step
between and yet it seems to me, he <My [illegible]> should at least have
placed himself in a situation to take care of his family, instead of adding
himself to your care—but then I do not know—I cannot ought <not> to
[illegible] I feel for you all I can, in your perplexity, & [illegible] most
earnestly—I could help you to see the <right> way [shou]—If you decide
to go to Boston⁶There is no record of Douglass traveling to or speaking anywhere in Massachusetts in December 1876. Surviving correspondence from that month indicates, to the contrary, that he was “quite ill” and housebound. George T. Downing to FD, 18 December 1876, General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 880–882L, FD Papers, DLC. let us know as soon as possible so that you can be relied
on to speak Sunday—I should like best if it should be the Sunday after
Christmas, & perhaps we might together spend New Years with the children at Fall River—By the way there are 2 or 3 persons to whom I want
to give yr photos—if you have any & want to give them to me for that
<purpose>, it would be nice I trust you have rec’d ‘the Crackers’ within I
did not start them as I said in my letter—I should, but did send the next
day so they ought now to be with you—

Gertie⁷Probably Martha Greene’s eldest daughter, Martha Gertrude Greene Sherman (1848–1929), who married William F. Sherman (1848–1926), an engineer. In 1876, the couple had one child, Alice Louise Sherman (1874–1965). The 1880 census indicates that Martha had begun living with the Shermans in Fall River. 1880 U.S. Census, Massachusetts, Bristol County, 37; 1900 U.S. Census, Massachusetts, Middlesex County, 246A; Louise Brownell Clarke, The Greenes of Rhode Island: With Historical Records of English Ancestry, 1534–1902 (New York, 1903), 451; “Rhode Island, U.S., Death Index, 1630–1930,” Ancestry.com; Find a Grave (online). & Alice share my room with me to night. Will. took tea with
us, & is gone to N. Falls for the night—tomorrow they all go home. It
has been so good that they have been with me here a good many times
this summer, for I have not been there, since we went together in May—
and had the row on the River and that conversation in the Boat. Do you
remember?

But I must leave you now—I wish I were as sure as you of the “real
presence” needed I SUCH ! I dare not be of anything—
but I do —what else is there to do?—Gertie is waiting for me, & says
give my kind regards

always very truly

MARTHA W. G.

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 877–79, FD Papers, DLC.