HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Peterboro, [N.Y.] 31 Aug[ust 1849].

MR. DOUGLASS:—

In the last number of the North Star, you offer me an opportunity, to speak for myself, through the same medium through which you have slandered and traduced me.¹Douglass declared himself willing to publish Gamet’s response to his criticism in the North Star of Garnet’s plan to distribute Bibles to slaves and his censorious behavior at a New York meeting on 10 May 1849. NS, 15 June, 31 August 1849. I thank you for it, and at the same time I assure you, that whenever you lay a[s]ide low and vulgar personalities, and call me out as a gentleman, I will answer, and not otherwise. I had two reasons for not resorting to your paper in order to make a reply. First, b[e]cause I addressed a letter to you last winter for publication, expressive of my gratitude to some of my anti-slavery friends in Penn Yan,²Mary A. Jeffrey of Geneva, New York, eighteen miles north of Penn Yan, raised funds for Garnet at this time. Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:40n. and you did not suffer it to see the light, because it contained some views which were unpalatable to you. And in the second place, because I thought it unlikely that after having wilfully misrepresented me, you could not even “for a pretence” show so much liberality.

You heard that my friends, and the friends of universal freedom in England, had invited me to visit that country,³British supporters of the Free Produce Movement had invited Garnet to lecture for their cause in England during autumn 1849. NS, 27 July 1849; Schor, Henry Highland Garnet, 104. and immediately you became very much alarmed, and your friends also. The reason for this trouble of mind on your part I have not been able to determine, unless it is, that you have the spirit of the Old Roman, and believe that “the world was made for Caesar.”⁴A quotation from Joseph Addison’s 1713 play, Cato. Joseph Addison, Cato: A Tragedy in Five Acts (London, 1867), act 5, sc. 1. You did not even want to know whether I was going to that country, before you labored like a Hercules⁵The mythological hero Heracles, also known as Hercules, was the son of the Greek god Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. He possessed unnatural virility and strength, allowing him to perform extraordinary physical feats. Praeger Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Civilization (New York, 1967), 230–34. to blacken my character in the eyes of a people who may never see me. I knew sir, that in your hot pursuit after a worthless, and a transient fame, you would sometimes stoop to mean things, but I never dreamed that you would ever sink so low, that you would have to reach up, standing on tip-toe, to find that level of meanness where common knaves are inclined to pause. Ah, sir, the green-eyed monster⁶The term “green-eyed monster” is a metaphor for jealousy. Othello, act 3, sc. 3, lines 189–91. has made you mad. Pardon me, when I tell you that you never imbibed a spirit so narrow from any dark son of our native Maryland, living or dead. But why should I marvel? When did you ever manifest friendship to any colored ma[n] who differed with you in sentiment? You deign not to mention the name of the noble Alexander CrummellCrummell, Alexander

Raised and educated in New York, Alexander Crummell (1819-98) became an Episcopal priest, an active member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and a contributor to the Colored American. He believed that black people should develop and support separate organizations that focused on the specific interests of African Americans. Although Crummell opposed the American Colonization Society, for which Douglass praised him, he later supported black immigration to Africa after spending twenty years in Liberia from 1850 to 1870. He and Douglass differed on various issues, including the type of education most useful for black people, the importance of racial difference, and the legacy of slavery in the years after the Civil War. Wilson Jeremiah Moses, Alexander Crummell: A Study of Civilization and Discontent(New York, 1989); William H. Ferris, Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture ( 1920; New York, 1969); DANB, 145-47; ANB, 5:820-22. ;⁷Raised and educated in New York, Alexander Crummell (1819–98) became an Episcopal priest, an active member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and a contributor to the Colored American. He believed that black peOple should develop and support separate organizations that focused on the specific interests of African Americans. Although Crummell opposed the American Colonization Society, for which Douglass praised him, he later supported black immigration to Africa after living in Liberia from 1850 to 1870. He and Douglass differed on various issues, including the type of education most useful for black people, the importance of racial difference, and the legacy of slavery in the years after the Civil War. Moses, Alexander Crummell; William H. Ferris, Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture (1920:, New York, 1969); ANB, 5:820–22; DANB, 145–47. you have stabbed at J. W. C. PenningtonPennington, James William Charles

Born Jim Pembroke, James William Charles Pennington (1809-71) had been a slave on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and trained as a blacksmith. His flight north at the age of twenty-one led him to the home of a Pennsylvania Quaker who taught him to read and write. Later Pennington found work and began teaching black children in Newtown, Long Island, and then in New Haven, Connecticut, where he also studied theology. Pennington's ministerial career began in 1838 in Newtown, and in 1840 he entered the Congregational ministry in Hartford, Connecticut, where he preached until 1847, later serving as a pastor (1848-55) of Shiloh Presbyterian Church in New York City. In 1843 Pennington traveled to England as a delegate-at-large to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London and then lectured in London, France, and Belgium. He so impressed his European audiences that the University of Heidelberg awarded him an honorary doctor of divinity degree. Fearing recapture after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, Pennington again traveled abroad, but abolitionist friends bought his freedom in 1851 for $150. He was an active member of both abolitionist and black self-improvement organizations. In addition to many sermons, addresses, and regular contributions to the Anglo-African Magazine, Pennington wrote A Text Book of the Origins and History, etc., etc., of the Colored People (1841), a query, based on biblical references, into the negro's ancestry and character; and an autobiography, The Fugitive Blacksmith (1849). Carter G. Woodson, ed., The Mind of the Negro as Reflected in Letters Written during the Crisis, 1800-1860 (Washington, D.C., 1926), 642-51; Martin Robison Delany, The Condition. Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered (1852; New York, 1968), 113; William Wells Brown, The Rising Son; or, The Antecedents and Advancement of the Colored Race (Boston, 1874), 461-63; Freeman, "Free Negro in New York City," 49-51, 53, 88-89, 108-10, 418; NCAB, 14:307; DAB, 14:441-42. ; you have tried to ruin that eloquent fugitive Henry BibbBibb, Henry

Henry Bibb (1815-54), born a slave in Shelby County, Kentucky, escaped in 1837, only to be recaptured in his unsuccessful attempt to rescue his wife and child. By 1842 he had escaped once again and settled in Detroit, Michigan, his residence until 1850. Immediately plunging into political and antislavery work, Bibb was hired as a lecturer by the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society and spoke on behalf of Liberty party candidates. Although Bibb planned to visit England in 1848, he was advised against making such a tour because the bigamous implications of his marriage to a free woman, Mary E. Miles, might limit his antislavery appeal. He toured the East in 1849, at one point acting as an agent for the North Star, and published his Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb (1849). After the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, Bibb settled in Windsor, Canada West, where he published the Voice of the Fugitive (1851-53). In January 1852 the Refugee Home Society was founded to assist American blacks to migrate to Canada and chose Bibb as a trustee. Bibb was also active in the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, serving as one of its vice presidents in 1852. NS, 24 March 1848; Henry Bibb, Narrative of the life and Adventures of Henry Bibb: An American Slave (New York, 1850); Floyd J. Miller, The Search for a Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization, 1787-1863 (London, 1975), 106-07, 110-15, 149; Winks, Blacks in Canada, 204-08, 254-55, 396-97; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 61-62, 185, 218-19; Pease and Pease, Black Utopia, 109-22; idem. They Who Would Be Free, 65, 252-53; Fred Landon, "Henry Bibb: A Colonizer," JNH, 5:437-47 (October 1920). ; and you have vainly attempted to crush that intellectual giant Samuel R. WardWard, Samuel Ringgold

Samuel Ringgold Ward (1817-c. 1866) was a Congregational minister, abolitionist, editor, and orator. His parents carried him along on their escape from slavery on Maryland's Eastern Shore in about 1820. The family settled six years later in New York City, where young Ward received an elementary education. In 1833 he embraced religion and received ordination in 1839. His two New York congregations, at South Butler (1841-43) and Courtland (1846-51), consisted mostly of whites, but Ward vigorously agitated for the rights of both slaves and free blacks. The American Anti-Slavery Society appointed Ward a lecturing agent in 1839. As one of the earliest black supporters of political abolitionism, Ward acted as spokesman for the Liberty party after 1844. Ward studied law and medicine briefly, and also tried his hand at editing during the late 1840s. His Impartial Citizen, published from Syracuse, and another newspaper venture both failed financially. In 1851 Ward's leading role in the Jerry Rescue caused him to fear arrest and to emigrate to Canada. There he launched the Provincial Freeman in 1853 and acted as agent for the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada. In the latter capacity, Ward journeyed to Britain in 1853 on a fundraising tour. In 1855 Ward published his Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro and accepted a British Quaker's gift of fifty acres of land in Jamaica. He lived his last decade on that island, farming, writing, and ministering to a small Baptist congregation. Ward’s involvement in abolitionist activities necessarily brought him into close contact with Douglass, who remarked that “as an orator and thinker he [Ward] was vastly superior . . . to any of us,” and that “the splendors of his intellect went directly to the glory of his race.” Douglass, Life and Times (1881), 284; Samuel Ringgold Ward, Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro: His Anti-Slavery Labours in the United States, Canada and England (1855; New York, 1968); NS, 2 February 1849; Robin W. Winks, The Blacks in Canada: A History, 2d ed. (New Haven, Conn., 1997), 206-08, 227, 265-66, 361,395; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 79, 98, 133, 138, 210. . But you are at home in the company of Thomas Van RensselaerVan Rensselaer, Thomas

Thomas Van Rensselaer was a leading black abolitionist in New York City and a cofounder of the Ram's Horn (c. 1846-48). A former slave from New York's Mohawk Valley, Van Rensselaer ran away from his master in 1819 and later operated a New York City restaurant called the Temperance House. He was active in the New York Vigilance Committee and in campaigns for equal educational and political rights for blacks. Though not a nonresistant, Van Rensselaer sided with the Garrisonians and served on the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society (1840-43). Around 1849 he moved to Philadelphia, where he continued to attend antislavery and black conventions. New York Colored American, 18 March, 28 October, 9 December 1837; NS, 8 December 1848, 26 October, 2 November 1849; FDP, 15 July 1853; Penn, Afro-American Press, 61-65; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 79-80, 100-01, 138, 178, 185; Freeman, "Free Negro in New York City," 71, 98, 100, 193-95, 197, 200, 284-85, 353, 365. , editor of the Ram’s Horn, whom you have accused of falsehood.⁸Douglass, always strong-willed, at times engaged in public and private arguments with prominent members of the reform community. In the spring and snmmer of 1849, he managed to offend several prominent black abolitionists. In addition to openly criticizing Garnet’s commitment to the Free Produce Movement, in May 1849 Douglass engaged in a public debate with Samuel Ringgold Ward over the value of the U.S. Constitution to the antislavery cause. In an editorial following the New York meeting, Douglass insisted that “we, of course, still hold the truth on the subject, however plain the opposite may appear to Mr. WARD and his friends.” Douglass’s editorial report of an April 1849 New York black convention offered a backhanded compliment to his fellow editor Thomas Van Rensselaer of the Ram's Horn. According to Douglass, Van Rensselaer’s “rough, ‘Ram’s Horn,’ off hand manner is not agreeable to many, but all must confess that there is power and spirit in the enemy and wields his dangerous weapons in all directions; sometimes mistaking friends for foes, his war club makes sad havoc among his own soldiers.” In May 1849 Douglass also publicly criticized Henry Bibb’s campaign to send Bibles to southern slaves, speaking at length in opposition to the plan at the annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society. The Bibles-for-Slaves scheme was broadly supported by such prominent abolitionists as Ward and Garnet, as well as Bibb. Douglass’s remarks put him at odds with all these individuals, at least temporarily. Bibb apparently remained bitter about Douglass’s attacks, for he delayed sending Douglass a copy of his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Henry Bibb, which was published in the summer of 1849. When it finally arrived, Douglass quipped in his editorial, “After waiting several weeks, we have received a copy of this little work. Why it did not come to hand sooner, we do not know, unless its author felt it proper to serve a black editor last.” NS, 4, 25 May, 1, 15, 22 June, 6 July, 17 August 1849. What think, you of the old adage, Show me a man’s company, and I will tell you what he
is?⁹An adaptation of a quotation from Don Quixote: “Tell me thy company, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.” Miguel Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote de la Mancha, trans. Charles Jarvis (New York, 1900), 518.

In your assassin-like article, which you desired to take effect in England, you say that I am a man, and may stand among my brethren.—Why was all that necessary? Why raise a mortal to the sky?¹⁰In his poem “Alexander’s Feast,” John Dryden compares the lyre played by Timotheus to the pipe organ that St. Cecilia gave to mankind, stating, “He rais’d a mortal to the skies; / She drew an angel down.” John Dryden, Alexander’s Feast; Or, The Power of Music in Honour of St. Cecilia ([London, 1779]), 3. You talk of my race—pray sir, how many races of men are there? Certainly if you do not belong to my race, you must belong to that of Haman.¹¹In the book of Esther, Haman is a nobleman in the court of King Ahasueras and a persecutor of the Jews. He builds a gallows to hang the Jew Mordecai, but when Ahasuerus accuses Haman of assaulting Queen Esther, Haman himself is hanged there. Freedman, Anchor Bible Dictionary, 3:33.

You make four charges against me, every one [o]f which is generally and particularly false; and you knew them to be such when you made them.

1. You say that I go to England to advocate a cause abroad which I have not espoused at home—the Free Produce cause.¹²The Free Produce Movement espoused the idea that the use of goods produced by slave labor economically supported slavery and, therefore, was tantamount to slaveholding itself. In the 1840s, Quaker congregations that had spawned the movement began to form organizations that would procure and market cane sugar, rice, coffee, and, particularly, cotton goods produced by free labor. Ruth Ketring Nuermberger, The Free Produce Movement: A Quaker Protest against Slavery (Durham, N.C., 1942), 4, 30–37, 60–61. This is untrue in two particulars. I go not for that purpose alone—I am requested to advocate the cause of freedom generally. I am a friend of Free Produce, and have humbly commenced practicing it.

2. You publish that I have no faith in the use of moral means for the extinction of American Slavery. I believe with all my heart in such means—and I believe that political power ought to be used for that end, and that when rightly used, it is strictly moral. I also believe that the slave has a moral right to use his physical power to obtain his liberty¹³Garnet maintained that violent antislavery tactics were both necessary and justified. That belief drew much criticism from the more pacifist abolitionists, who questioned the morality of his stance. Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 226–27; Schor, Henry Highland Garnet, 47–64.—my motto is, give me liberty, or give me death.¹⁴Patrick Henry gave an address denouncing the British Coercive Acts of 1774 to Virginia delegates at a hastily arranged convention. He delivered a rousing speech that culminated with the declaration, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” The statement later became a slogan for radical activists in a variety of movements. Alan Palmer and Veronica Palmer, Quotations in History: A Dictionary of Historical Quotations, c. 800 A.D. to the Present (New York, 1976), 106. Dare you, Frederick Douglass, say otherwise? Speak plainly—I am “calling you out.”

3. You accuse me of being your enemy. I am not. I stand in that relation to no man. You hate me because I tell you the truth. May you seek speedy repentance.

4. You, and the Anti-Slavery Bugle,¹⁵The Anti-Slavery Bugle denounced Garnet’s plan to lecture in Great Britain on the Free Produce Movement. The paper claimed Garnet had “done every thing in his power to injure the reputation and destroy the influence of Frederick Douglass,” and remarked, “That he will misrepresent and malign Douglass in Great Britain we have no doubt, and therefore we anticipate that he will do vastly more harm than good.” NS, 31 August 1849. say that I will misrepresent you in England. My theme in that land will be of better men, and better principles than you, or those which you possess. Will the Bugle please publish this letter, and send me the paper, and I will send him a years subscription.

Some two months ago or more, Mr. Douglass challenged me, in connexion with Ward, and Bibb, to discuss the matter upon which we differed in New York in May last.¹⁶On 10 May 1 849, at a meeting in New York City, Garnet, Samuel Ringgold Ward, and Henry Bibb attempted to silence Douglass when he criticized their plan to distribute Bibles among slaves. Incensed, Douglass published an editorial denouncing the three men for their rude behavior and clarifying his position on the issue. He then invited the men to respond, expressing his own willingness to print their rebuttals in the North Star. NS, 15 June 1849; Schor, Henry Highland Garnet, 104. I accepted, but you became frightened at the mere “shaking of my goose quill.” You could not be called out. You affirmed that the project to give the slaves the Bible, is unworthy of the attention of philanthropists.¹⁷In the North Star Douglass dismissed as impracticable the idea of distributing Bibles to slaves for two reasons. First, Douglass did not agree with Garnet that the Bible was the only instrument that could give slaves the power to liberate themselves. Second, such a scheme would require the complicity of the slaveholders, who would not agree to a plan intended to facilitate the end of slavery. NS, 15, 22 June 1849. I dissent from you entirely.

Your servant,

HENRY HIGHLAND GARNETGarnet, Henry Highland

Born a slave in Kent County, Maryland, Henry Highland Garnet (1815-82) fled north with his parents in 1824. He attended the African Free School in New York City, the Noyes Academy in Canaan, New Hampshire, and the Oneida Institute in Whitesboro, New York. Garnet was one of the founders of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society and a stump speaker for the Liberty party. Licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Troy in 1842, Garnet went to Jamaica in 1852 as a missionary of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. An early proponent of black emigration to Africa and founder of the African Civilization Society, Garnet, in his appeal sanctioning slave uprisings before a National Negro Convention in Buffalo, New York, in August 1843, praised the slave rebel Madison Washington. After the Civil War, Garnet was president of Avery College in Pittsburgh and the U.S. minister to Liberia (1881-82). Joel Schor, Henry Highland Garnet: A Voice of Black Radicalism in the Nineteenth Century (Westport, Conn., 1977); Dorothy Sterling, ed., Speak Out in Thunder Tones: Letters and Other Writings by Black Northerners, 1787-1865 (Garden City, N.Y., 1973), 376; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 68, 185, 216-17, 226-27; ANB, 8:735-36. .

PLSr: NS, 7 September 1849. Reprinted in Maryland Colonization Journal, 5:42–43 (September 1849).