WILLIAM JAY MURTAGH¹William Jay Murtagh (c. 1836–1901) was the founder and publisher of the National Republican, a newspaper published in Washington, D.C., from 1860 to 1888. Born in New York, Murtagh worked for Gamaliel Bailey’s National Era in Washington around the time that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was being published. Shortly after the National Era ceased publication, he started the National Republican. He established the paper as a pro–Lincoln administration paper and eventually sold it to Almon M. Clapp in 1877. In 1862–63, Murtagh held a seat on the Washington city council and sometimes was listed as a lawyer in directories. After selling the National Republican, he began a long series of investments in naval technology, his most successful one being in a Dutch submarine company. Washington National Republican, 1 October 1877; Washington Times, 28 October 1901; 1860 U.S. Census, District of Columbia, Washington, 228; Johnson, Papers of Andrew Johnson, 8: 448; Hudson, Journalism in the United States, 260. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Washington, D.C. 12 May 1877.

HON. FREDERICK DOUGLASS, PRESENT:

DEAR SIR:

This journal desires to be just. Our strictures upon your course are based
entirely upon the reports of your utterances at Baltimore²On 8 May 1877, Douglass addressed an audience at Baltimore’s Douglass Institute. He delivered his lecture “Our National Capital” as part of the St. Paul’s lyceum course at the hall named after him. The speech, which many viewed as a critique of the racial prejudices of the white population in Washington, D.C., caused an uproar. He had delivered the same lecture in Washington in November 1875 to little attention. But since President Hayes had recently confirmed Douglass as marshal of the District of Columbia, closer attention was paid to this particular speech. In the days following, several petitions called for Douglass’s removal from office. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 4: 443; Washington Evening Star, 26 November 1875; Washington National Republican, 12 May 1877; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 292; Graham Culbertson, “Frederick Douglass’s ‘Our National Capital’: Updating L’enfant for an Era of Integration,” Journal of American Studies, 48: 913 (November 2014). on last Tuesday
evening as I read them in three leading morning newspapers of that city,
namely, the ,³The Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser was the oldest newspaper in Maryland. It was first published by Alexander Martin, a native of Boston, on 14 May 1799. The American was a firm ally of the Whig party and became prominently identified with the Union cause and the Republican party. The American carried a report of Douglass’s speech in its 30 September 1865 issue. Scharf, History of Baltimore, 609. the ,⁴The Baltimore Sun printed its first issue in May 1837. Arunah Shepherdson Abell (1806–88) served as the paper’s first publisher and devoted himself to the idea of an independent newspaper, free of any political or religious influences. Unlike other penny-press newspapers of the day, the Sun did not run personal or inconsequential stories and thereby quickly earned a reputation as a reliable source of daily news. Abell used trains, Pony Express riders, and even carrier pigeons to transport the news, which allowed the Sun to report the news faster than most other papers. For example, during the Mexican War, U.S. government officials often received war news from the Sun well before it arrived from their own sources, thanks to a team of Pony Express riders employed by the paper. While the paper sympathized with the southern cause during the antebellum period, it fell silent on the issue of slavery, the election of 1860, and even the Civil War itself. During the war, when most Baltimore papers were silenced by the U.S. government for running pro-Confederate content, the Sun sent no war correspondents into the field, printed only the bare minimum regarding battles, and remained neutral in its editorial sections. Following the war, the Sun struggled while the city of Baltimore declined economically. Eventually, Abell made three of his sons partners, and by the turn of the century, the Sun had regained its position as an independent, reliable, and influential source of news in Maryland. Scharf, History of Baltimore, 617–22; Jon A. Roosenraad, “Arunah S. Abell (10 August 1806–19 April 1888),” in Ashley, American Newspaper Journalists, 3–4, 6–7; William S. Abell, Arunah Shepherdson Abell (1806–1888): Founder of the Sun of Baltimore (Chevy Chase, Md., 1989), 2, 12–15, 23, 67; ANB, 1: 36–37. and the ,⁵The Baltimore Gazette was first published as the Daily Exchange in 1858. An independent newspaper, it did not support secession but, editorially, it promoted states’ rights and reunion with the South by negotiation. During the Civil War, the U.S. government suppressed the paper and jailed its editors for opposing the Lincoln administration. To stay in print, the paper changed its name to the Maryland Times and later the Maryland News Sheet. The Baltimore Gazette printed its first issue in October 1862. A proponent of Democratic party principles, the Gazette continued its reputation as an independent paper and a trustworthy source of news. Clayton Colman Hall, ed., Baltimore: Its History and its People, 3 vols. (New York, 1912), 1: 710–11; Scharf, History of Baltimore, 631–34; ANB, 9: 119–20. all of which are in
harmony with each other in their reports of your lecture. If you have been

misrepresented by these three newspapers will not only
cheerfully retract all it has said against you, but will make such amends
as will set you right before the community. But in order to do so to the
satisfaction of the public, and to enable me to write intelligently upon a
subject in which the citizens of Washington evince so deep an interest,
I will thank you to send me by bearer either a copy of your lecture or a
loan of the original, in order that I may publish it in full in tomorrow’s
.

A publication of the lecture, such as you delivered it, will speak for
itself. Of course, if you indulged in extemporoneous remarks, not contained in your written lecture, please favor me with your best recollection
of the same.

PLe: , 13 May 1877.