N. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Salem, N.Y. 20 Sept[ember] 1849.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS:—

It is truly gratifying when one learns that a renewed effort is being made for the attainment of freedom. I noticed some days since, in the North Star, two letters touching the formation of a “Liberty League” among us, by which means those of us who from various causes are at issue on the abolition question, will all be linked heart and hand: when we will rush down on oppression like a mountain torrent, sweeping away every obstacle which dares to impede the march of freedom.¹There were actually three letters published in the 7 September 1849 issue of the North Star praising Douglass’s plan for a Liberty or National League. The first, from J. W. Whitfield of Buffalo, dated 30 August, noted that the need for such an organization was “too obvious to need argument.” This was followed by a 3 September letter from William H. Topp of Albany and a 28 August letter from John N. Cole of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The letter frem Topp appears in this volume. NS, 7 September 1849.

With a knowledge of the fact that we are an oppressed people, what must we do? One says, We have tried to be free, we have failed; therefore freedom is not for us. Another says—we are too divided ever to be concentrated upon one idea, we had as well give up the chase. But not so, let us toil on.

Let our motto be “The union, of the oppressed for the sake of liberty,”²The motto of the organization was actually “The Union of the Oppressed for the Sake of Freedom,” which was taken from the title of Douglass’s original editorial proposing the league. “N.” seems to have picked up on the slogan as misquoted in the letter from John N. Cole. NS, 10 August, 7 September 1849. let us form the “League,” and bind ourselves in sentiment with a three-fold cord never to be broken. Oh! when that bright day of universal sentiment shall dawn upon us, what heart so hard as shall not be moved? What eyes that will refuse to shed tears of joy? What oppression that will not give place? What mortal that will not bow his face to the dust and cry, Great God, virtuous and just is thy Government! Then away will go our clashing abolition views, our prejudices in favor of Methodism, Presbyter[i]anism, Romanism, or any other ism extant. We will know each other as brothers,

and laborers in the cause of freedom, working upon the same platform for the accomplishment of the same end. I would suggest after the people had become fully acqua[i]nted with the subject of the “Liberty League” that a National Convention be called to meet at the most central point in the free states. Then, and there, let an instrument of writing be drawn which every member will swear to maintain as did the fathers of ’76³The Continental Congress wrote and adopted the Declaration of Independence in 1776.—the instrument banishing forever world without end, those opinions on which we are almost certain to make shipwreck when we come in contact.

When we shall have reached this summit of reform, we can defy all the machinations of slavery, all the schemes of Southerners, and their allies, for we will have God and Justice on our side. We will be like the house built upon a rock;⁴A reference to Matt. 7:24. against which every opposition wind may blow, but can do us no harm. Our children shall have to perform, upon the same platform from which we are passing. We cannot leave them a better inheritance than good and noble examples. Gold, houses, and lands perish in the usage; but lessons of virtue, loyalty, and unflinching adherence to right, follow them through life to the grave, and then bloom out upon their offspring.

Cheer up! Come, up brethren, to the work, with your armor burnished, determined never to be conquered.

N.

PLIr: NS, 12 October 1849.