Pittsburgh, January 14, 1848.

Dear Douglass:—I am still in Pittsburgh, getting ready, as fast as possible, to start out on my Western tour for the North Star. I have just begun to work here, and do something for our paper, which, as far as it has been seen, has met a cordial welcome.

The proprietors of the "Mystery," my old paper, are, as you have seen, making industrious efforts to sustain their little favorite, which they ought to do, and for which I know you will readily join with me in commending them. This they can do, by making the Mystery more of a home paper; because, in Pittsburgh, there are, alone, sufficient colored people to sustain it, if each family but do their duty.

The "Saturday Visiter," a new anti-slavery paper, recently commenced in this city, edited, by the distinguished and eccentric Mrs. SWISSHELM, with the wonted ability of that amiable lady, is at present engaging the attention of the anti-slavery community and others here. There is scarcely aught else, of interest, transpiring at present, to name to you. There is, on next Tuesday, the 18th, a "Levee" to be held in Philo Hall, in this city, for the benefit of the Mystery. This is the divine work of the Ladies. God bless them!

Steamboat explosions, as you have doubtless ere this seen, are most awfully and fearfully frequent. This, I opine, must be the result of the sheerest and most reprehensible carelessness, meriting the utmost severity of the laws, which now lie a dead letter. A person, now-a-days, taking passage upon a Western steamboat, might be viewed in the light of a child thrown upon the Ganges—a victim to the element. None of these boats, however, I am proud to acknowledge, are of Pittsburgh build, but belong "below." The slaveholders make nothing good but slaves: these they appear to be better at manufacturing than anything else.

I was not aware, when I noticed the departure of Mr. GEORGE B. VASHON, that he had been refused (even on examination by the committee) admittance to the bar. But, sir, this was even so: although I am credibly informed, that his able and distinguished preceptor, Hon. WALTER FORWARD, made every effort in his behalf; but all of no avail. The infernal spirit of proscription and intolerance, fostered among a certain class, found full vent, being proven to have been nestled at the Pittsburgh bar; and, like the lava bursting from the crater of hell, they heaved it forth in one damning eruption, sending its fire and smoke hissing and foaming throughout the neighborhood, until a vast portion of Western Pennsylvania has become tarnished by reason thereof. Yes, sir, this is true. The Judge, Walter H. Lowrie, Esq., of the District Court, before whom application was made to sue out a rule of court to show cause why Mr. Vashon was not examined, assigned as his reason, that Chief Justice Gibson, of Pennsylvania, had decided against colored people being citizens; therefore he would never consent thereto. This, truly, was the decision of Judge Gibson; an insult upon our manhood which all true men hold in utter contempt.

Mr. Vashon, on his tour, stopped in the city of New York; and, as I learn by a recent letter, was on the eve of an examination before the Supreme Court in that city; and, ere this; probably has been admitted to practice.

What a contrast between the smoky Iron City, and the Gothic Metropolis of the Nation! A burning stigma, an indellible disgrace, is this, upon the once liberal, but now retrograding Pennsylvania! But to measure Pittsburgh, or I may even say, the entire State of Pennsylvania, by this miserable example, would be gross injustice.

The example of the medical faculty, alone, would have been sufficient to have taught the apostate disciples of Justin a lesson; and the editorial corps, as well as many other respectable professions I could mention, even here, in our midst, all put, most palpably, these colorphobites of the Pittsburgh bar, to the blush.

David J. Peck, M.D., is doing well in Philadelphia, having a fine office in "Institute Buildings," where he is receiving the calls and attention of the most polished practitioners and professors of the medical schools.—This is as it should be, and shows most conclusively that law has as much to do with the hideous monster, slavery, as medicine, or any other respectable business. And it is a fact, well worthy of remark, that, other than that of law, any combination with slavery is considered a blighting disgrace to the participants. How stand the law, then, and lawyers, when favoring the oppressor? I know that you will answer, They are supporters of tyranny and despotism.

I will write you once a week.

Yours, in behalf of our oppressed and down-trodden countrymen,

M. R. D.Delany, Martin Robison

Born to a free mother and a slave father in Charlestown, in western Virginia, Martin Robison Delany (1812-85) was an editor, physician, and leading advocate of black emigration. In 1822 Delany's mother moved to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where his father later joined them, and the young Delany attended a local school. In 1831 he moved to Pittsburgh where he worked as a barber, attended a school run by a black Methodist minister, and studied medicine, upgrading his occupation from “cupper and leecher“ to physician. Between 1843 and 1847, Delany was editor of the Mystery, a black Pittsburgh newspaper. For the next two years he served as co-editor of Doug1ass’s North Star and lectured and traveled extensively to gain new subscriptions for that paper. In 1850-51 Delany attended Harvard Medical College but, owing to protests from white students, was denied admission to the final term needed to complete his medical degree. The following year he wrote The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered (Philadelphia, 1852), in which he argued that emigration was the only remedy for the oppressed state of black Americans. When many black abolitionists, including Douglass, rejected Delany's position, he organized a series of National Emigration Conventions that met in 1854, 1856, and 1858. These assemblies created a permanent National Board of Commissioners, of which Delany was president and chief propagandist. In 1856 Delany moved to Chatham, Canada West, and three years later explored the Niger river valley in Africa looking for possible emigration sites. His novel Blake was serialized in the Weekly Anglo-African from November 1861 through May 1862. During the Civil War, Delany served the North first as a recruiter and examining surgeon and eventually as a major of the 104th U.S. Colored Troops. From 1865 to 1868 Delany was a Freedmen's Bureau officer in South Carolina and later was active in that state's politics, running unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor on the Independent Republican ticket in 1874. Ullman, Martin R. Delany, 52-103, 115-21, 140-71, 211-46; Dorothy Sterling, The Making of an Afro-American: Martin Robison Delany, 1812—1885 (Garden City, N.Y., 1971); Thomas Holt, Black Over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction (Urbana, Ill., 1977), 74-75, 176-77; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 115-33, 171-83; Martin R. Delany, Blake; or, The Huts of America, ed. Floyd J. Miller (Boston, 1970), ix; DAB, 5: 219-20.