FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO ALPHONSO M. SUMNER¹Alphonso M. Sumner was the editor of the Cincinnati Disenfranchised American. Formerly of Tennessee, Sumner was a free black barber who helped organize the first school for Nashville’s blacks. After being accused of aiding fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad in 1836, Sumner fled to Cincinnati, where he founded the Disenfranchised American, the city’s first black newspaper. Sumner played a leading role in the 1843 black state convention held in Columbus and was a delegate to the 1843 National Negro Convention in Buffalo. Little information about Sumner’ s newspaper has survived, other than that a committee of Cincinnati blacks served as its publisher, and a mob of whites destroyed its press during Cincinnati’s 1841 race riots. Sumner published the paper until 1863, when the Cincinnati Colored Citizen succeeded it. Bobby L. Lovett, The African-American History of Nashville, Tennessee, 1780—1930: Elites and Dilemmas (Fayetteville, Ark., 1999), 34–35; Armistead S. Pride and Clint C. Wilson, Jr., A History of the Black Press (Washington, D.C., 1997), 62; Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 2:306–21.

Boston, [Mass.] 18 December 1849.

Mr. SUMNER,—

SIR:

A copy of your paper has just been put into my hand, containing a somewhat severe attack upon me, based upon an article recently published in the “North Star.” I beg to state in explanation, that the article by which your indignation has been provoked, was neither writte[n] by me, nor by my authority; that at the time it was written, I was full five hundred miles from home. That my articles in the “North Star,” are usually signed with my initials; that the article in question was not signed as above;²A brief, unsigned article that appeared in the 23 November issue of the North Star charged the Disfranchised American with representing the “views of the pro-slavery religions and secret societies of the colored people in Philadelphia,” and stated that the newspaper was “uncalled for and unnecessary.” At the time of publication, Douglass was on a speaking tour, expecting to be away from Rochester for another four to five weeks. The article was probably written by Douglass’s associate, John Dick, an English printer who came to Rochester to work on the North Star after meeting Douglass in Britain. In a “Letter from the Editor,” dated 24 November, Douglass pointed out that the publication of the newspaper had been entrusted to Dick during his absence. NS, 23, 30 November, 7 December 1849. that I have never seen a copy of your paper before seeing the one before me; that I have never expressed an unfavorable opinion of yourself, nor of your paper, at any time, in nor out of the “Star.” Now sir, that justice may be done speedily, and that there may be no strife between persons situated as we are,