Frederick Douglass Gerrit Smith, May 28, 1851
FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO GERRIT SMITH
Rochester, [N.Y.] 28 May [18]51.
Gerrit Smith Esq:
MY DEAR SIR:
Pardon me for writing so often. I send this to say that, I have made the proposal to our friend, Mr. Thomas,1John Thomas. which you suggest in the letter now before me;2Gerrit Smith’s letter to Douglass has not been located.—I have offered him the freedom of the office—assistant
Editorship—and six dollars per week for his services. If he accepts this arrangement, the union of papers will be completed and we shall soon see the new paper afloat.
I shall need, to begin with, four hundred dollars—to provide things suited to enlargement and beauty. This will be all sufficient. I do not wish to go in debt at the commencement of the Enterprize—and I shall save ten percent—by paying cash, for my new press and type. I tremble to ask it—and yet I know not what better to do—will you be so good as to let me have two hundred of that sum—if so I will raise the other two—and you shall, if all be well, see the New Sheet unfurled on the first of July,—the day of cheap postage.3In order to stifle competing private mail delivery services, Congress passed the Post Office Act of 1851, which reduced postal rates. Effective 1 July 1851, the U.S. Post Office cut the cost of mailing a newspaper in half, in addition to reducing the rate for mailing letters. Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), 49, 156, 160; Lysander Spooner, “Who Caused the Reduction in Postage? Ought He to Be Paid?” in The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner, comp. Charles Shively, 6 vols. (1850; Weston, Mass., 1971), 1:5–12.
Most sincerely & gratefully Your friend.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
[P.S.] I am sure that I can work with Thomas—and that together we can do true men’s work—in the cause of “All rights for All”.4“ALL RIGHTS FOR ALL” was the motto that Douglass later used for Frederick Douglass’ Paper. FDP, 26 June 1851.
F.D.
ALS: Gerrit Smith Papers, NSyU.