WILLIAM G. ALLEN TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

McGrawville, [N.Y.] 3 Dec[ember] 1851.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ESQ.—

DEAR SIR,—

I have just read your address headed “the colored people and our paper,” in your paper of Nov. 27th.¹Experiencing severe economic distress that threw into question his ability to continue publication of his newspaper, Douglass issued a plea for support from the African American community. On 16 October 1851 Douglass published a letter in which New York physician and black abolitionist James McCune Smith outlined a proposal to continue Frederick Douglass’ Paper as a semiweekly periodical. That letter appears in this volume. By the end of November, to Douglass’s dismay, “not one colored man in the United States [had] responded to the earnest appeal of the proposer.” In his editorial “The Colored People and Our Paper,” appearing in the 27 November 1851 issue of Frederick Douglass’ Paper, Douglass advised his readers, “It is for you to say whether you can dispense with the services of the only Journal in this country which is, in every sense, identified with the interests and happiness of yourselves.” FDP, 16 October, 27 November 1851. Your rebuke in reference to the proposition of Dr. McCune Smith, which proposition was set forth in your paper of Oct. 16th, is no doubt deserved; though for myself, I may say that as soon as I saw the proposition, I fully acceded to it, and as fully intended to respond immediately to the Doctor’s earnest appeal. Why I have not done so, is simply because I have had no time to write. My duties here are arduous; and not only so, I sometimes fear that, shut in as I am by the hills of McGrawville, and confined so exclusively to languages and the like, I shall eventually become a sort of living mummy—a thing of Greek and German root.

But to the proposition:—The Doctor proposes that two thousand dollars shall be raised by subscribers: two hundred to pay one dollar each; and one hundred, three dollars each; one hundred, five dollars each; and one hundred, ten dollars each;—all to be paid in by the first of December, 1851, and to be a gift for the establishing of a Semi-Weekly paper published by yourself. The first of December 1851, has passed; nevertheless I will pledge ten dollars, subject to your order, should the proposition meet with favor.

I am pressed for time, and can say no more just now than to assure you that my sympathies are with you, and that my sincerest prayer is that you may be built up in every work which shall tend to develop in humanity “Whatsoever things are honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report.”²Phil. 4:8, adapted.

Faithfully Yours,

W. G. ALLEN.

PLSr: FDP, 11 December 1851.