JOSEPH C. HOLLY¹Joseph Cephas Holly (1825–55), the elder brother of emigrationist James Theodore Holly, was a pragmatic black abolitionist who identified himself as a Garrisonian yet supported political abolitionists, including Douglass. Born to free black parents in Washington, D.C., Holly moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1844 and became a shoemaker. Among the early subscribers to the North Star, Holly wrote five articles on American slavery for the paper between February and June 1848. He addressed antislavery appeals to northern blacks and whites and to southern nonslaveholders, linking the rights of poor whites with those of blacks. In 1850 Holly moved to Burlington, Vermont, and established a bootmaking business with the financial backing of Lewis Tappan. He embarked upon tours of Vermont, serving as an agent for Douglass’s newspaper and speaking on a number of issues related to the needs and rights of African Americans. Although Holly and his brother James held divergent views on colonization and emigration, they lectured together, debating the issues publicly. Shortly after Joseph moved to Rochester in 1853, he was a delegate to the black national convention that assembled there, and he published a volume of poetry, Freedom’s Offering (1853). NS, 4, 18 February, 10 March, 7 April, 9 June 1848, 6 July 1849, 1 February 1850; FDP, 22 January, 5 February, 23 March, 1, 15 April 1852, 17 June, 22 July, 28 October 1853, 12 January 1855; David M. Dean, Defender of the Race: James Theodore Holly, Black Nationalist Bishop (Boston, 1979), 3–20; Geraldine O. Matthews, Black American Writers, 1773–1949: A Bibliography and Union List (Boston, 1975), 148; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 108–10; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:25–26n. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Burlington, Vt. 31 Dec[ember] 1851.

DEAR DOUGLASS:—

I embrace the present moment to drop you a few lines. My pen has been silent for some time past; not that there has been nothing worthy of note; but because late events have produced a state of mental excitement from which I have not had sufficient time to cool. The Fugitive slave law and the almost universal acquiescence of the Northern people in its enforcement were well calculated to leave a colored man in a state unfit for calm reflection; and no one should attempt to set forth his views unless in possession of his reasoning faculties.

I will not dissertate upon the inconsistency of harboring the great European fugitive²Louis Kossuth. at this time of slave-catching and treason trials. It is too glaring to be unfamiliar to the most superficial observer.

But “shall we scoff at Europe’s Kings
Whilst freedom’s fire burns dim with us,
And round our country's altar clings
The damning shade of slavery’s curse?”³Holly quotes “Our Fellow Countrymen in Chains,” by John Greenleaf Whittier, which appeared in an 1837 antislavery broadside. John Greenleaf Whittier, Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (Boston, 1892), 45–46.

The F.D. paper is as acceptable to me as when it held the reverse view of the American Constitution. After the fashion of other great men, I must define my position.—My views in relation to that instrument are unchanged. But while I claim the right of opinion for one so humble as myself, it would be presumption to deny it to others; folly to deny myself the instruction of those who differ from me.

Yours for Liberty and Reform,

JOSEPH C. HOLLY.