FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL,¹Samuel Sewall (1799—1888), a Massachusetts lawyer and reformer, was a founder of the New England Anti-Slavery Society and later served on the board of managers and as auditor for the Massachusetts Anti–Slavery Society. In 1827 he published his Remarks on Slavery in the United States through the pages of the Christian Examiner. Sewall legally defended fugitive slaves and was the Liberty party candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 1843. Nina Moore Tiffany, Samuel E. Sewall: A Memoir (Boston, 1898); Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Papers, 2:56–57n. WENDELL PHILLIPS, AND THEODORE PARKER²Theodore Parker (1810–60), a Massachusetts reformer and Unitarian minister, was a theologian, abolitionist, and leader in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law. A native of Lexington, Massachusetts, Parker graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1836. His Twenty-eighth Congregational Society was perhaps the most socially diverse and theologically liberal church in Boston. He served on the Boston Vigilance Committee and worked with the New England Emancipation Aid Society, groups that assisted fugitive slaves. In the early 1850s Parker helped two of his parishioners, William and Ellen Craft, avoid capture by Georgia slave catchers. In 1859 Parker was a member of the secret committee that provided financing for John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry, and he fled the country following the failed action. Henry Steele Commager, Theodore Parker (New York, 1960); George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind (New York, 1971), 119–21, 157–58; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:52n; ANB, 17:43–44.

Rochester, [N.Y.] 11 June 1851.

To Messrs—

S. E. Sewall

Wendell Phillips

Theodore Parker

Committee.

GENTLEMEN,

I am deeply sensible of the honor you have done me, by inviting me to join you, in the token of respect to George Thompson, you propose to give in Boston, on the eve of his departure, from the United States to his native Land[.]³On Monday, 23 June 1851, Boston abolitionists and reformers held a farewell event for George Thompson in the assembly room over the Boston and Worcester Railroad Depot. FDP, 26 June 1851. To participate how humbly so ever in such a demonstration would afford me sincere pleasure[.] But I cannot be present, and I much regret that I cannot.

In common with all the sable sons of America, I owe George Thompson a mighty debt of gratitude, respect and love. His labors in behalf of my afflicted, enslaved and slandered people, have been productive of good, to an extent, which eternity alone can fully disclose. My heart grows warm at the mention of his name. That name, is associated in my mind with the names of the noblest benefactors of suffering man.

There were two courses plainly set before George Thompson, when he Landed on the shores of this Republic—in the Autumn of 1850.⁴On 19 October 1850 George Thompson sailed from Liverpool, arriving in Boston on 29 October 1850. FDP, 31 October 1851; Lib., 1 November 1851; Garrison and Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 3:305–06. He was a free man. He was not compelled to adopt any given course. There are men, many of them, who seem doomed by vertue of their very organization, to a limited and contracted sphere of action. In them, the ability to wish is present—but the ability to do is absent. George Thompson belongs not to this class. Long before he came to this country, his Philanthropy, Zeal, industry and splendid genius—rendered him before the whole civilized world—a light of surpassing brightness—a gem greatly to be coveted. A prize worth securing.

Wealth, honor and ease invited him to their sumptious entertainment, only asking as a condition that he should array himself in the smooth garments of worldly prudence. Had he complied.

Instead of being assailed, maligned, calumniated, mobbed and threatened with assasination as he has been⁵During a reception held in Faneuil Hall on 15 November 1850, George Thompson faced so much vocal opposition from Boston Whigs when he tried to speak that he was unable to complete his speech condemning northern support of the Fugitive Slave Law. Lib., 15, 22 November 1850; NS, 5 December 1850.—he would have been welcomed, applauded, honored, caressed and hailed every where, as a destinuished guest from one end of this union to the other. His early anti slavery

sentiments—would have been charitably forgiven—as those of Theobold Mathew⁶In 1849 the Irish priest Theobald Mathew traveled to the United States to lecture on temperance reform. While temperance was his main focus, Father Mathew also supported the abolition of slavery in America. As early as 1842, he was among the first to sign an Irish petition supporting the abolition of slavery in the United States and urging Irish Americans to treat African Americans as equals. When Father Mathew arrived in the United States, William Lloyd Garrison invited the priest to join the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society’s celebration of the British West Indies Emancipation on 3 August 1849. Father Mathew declined, stating that he wanted to focus solely on “the slavery in intemperance” during his American tour. Outraged, Garrison filled several columns in the Liberator for nine weeks denouncing Father Mathew’s decision. Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 3:542–43.—and Daniel Webster⁷In 1819 Daniel Webster played a leading role as a Boston lawyer in public protests against Missouri’s admission to the Union as a slave state. In his famous debate in 1826 with Robert Y. Hayne in the U.S. Senate, Webster called slavery “one of the greatest evils, both moral and political,” a position he reiterated frequently. Although he never joined or affiliated with the immediate abolitionist movement, his opposition to Texas annexation and the Mexican-American War appealed to antislavery northerners. As a result of this record, Webster’s support for strengthening the Fugitive Slave Law and for passage of the Compromise of 1850 startled his admirers and produced bitter condemnation from the abolitionists. Remini, Daniel Webster, 169–70, 183–89, 320–26, 464, 628–29, 638–39, 670–78. have been—and his course might have been one series of brilliant demonstrations. But George Thompson had a heart. He saw the poor, weak, emaciated bond men in chains—his heart was touched by the mournful wail. Wealth, Luxury and ease lost their gilded charms. He turned his back upon the scorner—and his face to the despized, and generously gave himself to toil. With the disinterested spirit of the Iraelitish deliverer⁸Douglass likens George Thompson to the biblical figure of Moses, whom God chose to lead the Hebrew people ont of bondage in Egypt and into Israel. Freedman, Anchor Bible Dictionary, 4:909–13.—he preferred to suffer affliction with the people of God—to enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season.

Honor him who is an honor to humanity. He is a man of many millions. We do not often meet his like—a miracle of true courage—daunted by no dangers—disheartened by no opposition—a moral hero—not less then an intellectual giant, whom all the reproaches of a mighty nation have been unable to silence or subdue.

God bless George Thompson—and methinks I hear from every slave dungeon in the land a responsive amen. I am, Gentlemen, with many regrets, that I cannot be with you.

Very truly yours,

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

[P.S.] A good old Farmer—an abolitionist of course—Gedion Ramsdell⁹Gideon Ramsdell (1816–?) was a successful farmer from Egypt, New York, where he lived with his wife, Susan, and his son, William, and where he employed several laborers and subscribed to the North Star. 1848 Mail Book of the North Star, 41, FD Papers Project, InIU; 1850 U.S. Census, New York, Wayne County, Macedon, 54.—to whom I have just read this letter, gave me for Mr. Thompson the enclosed two dollars.

F. D.

ALS: FD Papers, NHi. PLSr: Lib., 27 June 1851; NASS, 3 July 1851; JNH, 10:752–54 (October 1925); Woodson, Mind of the Negro, 488–90.