SAMUEL J. MAY TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Syracuse, [N.Y.] 9 Dec[ember] 1847.

DEAR DOUGLASS:—

I hasten to congratulate you on the rising of the “North Star” in the horizon of Rochester. I have read it all with entire satisfaction—much of it

with delight. It is a number one, in the best, as well as in the first sense.¹Published in Rochester, New York, the first issue of the North Star appeared on 3 December 1847. I hope you will write another letter to Henry ClayClay, Henry

Henry Clay (1777-1852), a native Virginian, entered politics during the 1790s in his adopted state of Kentucky and rose quickly to national prominence. As a congressman, senator, secretary of state, founder of the Whig party, and regular presidential candidate, Clay espoused broadly nationalistic programs designed to avoid sectional antagonism caused by the issue of slavery. He figured prominently in the debates that led to the passage of the Missouri Compromise, and he was a leading architect of the Compromise of 1850. His support of the American Colonization Society earned him the lasting hostility of Garrisonian abolitionists. In Congress, Clay vigorously opposed abolitionist petitions against slavery in the District of Columbia. Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (New York, 1991); Richard H. Sewell, Ballots for Freedom: Antislavery Politics in the United States, 1837-1860 (New York, 1976), 109; DAB, 4:73-79. ,²Douglass published his lengthy letter to Henry Clay in the first issue of the North Star. That letter appears in this volume. NS, 3 December 1847. and expose his folly on the subject of colonization. He ought to be put to shame for clinging to that humbug. It is a delusion, however, not yet dispelled from the minds of thousands; and Mr. Clay’s commendation of it furnishes you with a fair occasion to kill that dead body once more.

Yours, truly,

SAMUEL J. MAY.

PLSr: NS, 7 January 1848.