FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO ISABEL JENNINGS

Edinburgh, [Scot.] 30 July 1846.

MY DEAR ISA—

This is first oppertunity of addressing you since I received your last note.¹Isabel Jennings’s letter to Douglass has not been located. What shall I say to avert your displeasure. I can say with truth that I regret having made you angry—and regret having wrote the letter at which you took offence. You rightly account for its seeming harshness[.] Let Dr. SmythSmyth, Thomas

A Presbyterian minister of Scots-Irish descent, Thomas Smyth (1808–73) was born in Belfast, Ireland, and educated at Belfast College and in London at Highbury College. After immigrating to the United States with his parents in 1830, he continued his studies at Princeton Theological Seminary before his ordination the following year. From 1834 until his death, he was the pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina. A prolific writer of doctrinal treatises and devotional literature, Smyth also wrote an ethnological justification of African slavery titled The Unity of the Human Races (New York, 1850). In 1843 Princeton University awarded him a doctor of divinity degree. Smyth figured prominently in the early fortunes of the Free Church of Scotland, raising a large share of the approximately $9,000 that the Free Church collected from proslavery churches in the South. When some members of the Free Church began expressing abolitionist sentiments, Smyth threatened to discontinue southern financial support. In July 1846, both Douglass and Smyth were in Belfast to influence the General Assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church. While Douglass and other abolitionists urged that the Free Church “send back the money,” Smyth wanted the church to take a proslavery position and counterattacked with the slogan “Send Back the Nigger.” After an attempt to discredit Douglass surfaced, Douglass sued Smyth for defamation of character. To avoid further controversy at the assembly, church leaders asked Smyth not to participate. Lib., 26 April 1844; Louisa Cheves [Smythe] Stoney, ed., Autobiographical Notes, Letters, and Reflections by Thomas Smyth, D.D. (Charleston, SC, 1914), 217–19; Thomas Smyth, The Claims of the Free Church of Scotland to the Sympathy and Assistance ofAmerican Christians (Edinburgh, Scot., 1844); idem, The Character of the Late Thomas Chalmers, D.D., LL.D., and the Lessons of His Life, from Personal Recollections (Charleston, S.C., 1848), 13–17; Blackett, Building an Antislavery Wall, 83–97; J. F. MacLear, “Thomas Smyth, Frederick Douglass, and the Belfast Antislavery Campaign,” South Carolina Historical Magazine, 80:288–94 (October 1979); George Shepperson, “Notes and Documents: Thomas Chalmers, the Free Church of Scotland, and the South,” Journal of Southern History, 17:520–26 (November 1951); idem, “The Free Church and American Slavery,” 132–33; ACAB, 5:600; DAB, 14:377–78. bear the blame. I should never have written such a letter had I not been erritated by the foul slanders of this Revd. manstealer. Still Dear Isa I cannot be as kind to myself as you have been to me. I cannot throw all the blame so far

from home[.] I must take a share of it myself. I will not take much of it however[.] I will throw it off upon poor human nature. No man hath power over the spirit.³A paraphrase of Eccles. 8:8. He must submit its magic sway with the same resignation that the weather-beaten Mariner does when dashed upon the waves of the storm tossed ocean. I would be always pleasant and agreeable if I could be, but so I cannot allways be. I cannot be always upon the mountain top—no more than I can be always in the tranquil shade of the valley[.] I have my times and seasons like every body else[.] You told me nothing new—when you told me that I was imperfect.⁴In an earlier draft of this letter, Douglass wrote that he had “ascertained the cause of difference between us to be my imperfection or rather I had not come up to the expections which you had formed respecting me at the first from what you learned of me through Mr. Garrison and Phillips. This is what you meant or your words were not suited to your meaning. If you meant this it was just cause for disatisfaction. You told me no news at all when you told me I was imperfect, and if Mr. Garrison or Phillips gave you any reason to expect perfection in me, they did both you and me a serious wrong.” General Correspondence File, reel 9, frame 296, FD Papers, DLC. It was known here three weeks before your letter came to hand. I am sory that Mr. Garrison or Phillips⁵Wendell Phillips.—led you astray in regard to my character. But enough of this. I am in deed a very imperfect being—and that should have been my submissive reply to your kind note instead of the naughty letter which made you so angry.

Please make my love to all at Brown street⁶Isabel Jennings lived on Brown Street in Cork, Ireland. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:167. and believe as ever your sincere friend.

F DOUGLASS

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 1, frame 617, FD Papers, DLC. PLSr: Foner, Life and Writings, 5:45–46.