For Frederick Douglass' Paper.

MR. EDITOR:—I have lately read an ar
ticle, in the Voice of the Fugitive, comment
ing on your remaks in relation to the Emi
gration Convention, as also the able letter of
my esteemed friend, J. M. WhitfieldWhitfield, James Monroe

James Monroe Whitfield (1822-71), barber and poet, was born in New Hampshire. During the winter of 1838-39, the Young Men's Union Society of Cleveland appointed Whitfield to deliver an address on the subject of emigration. Thus, as a youth of sixteen, Whitfield urged that blacks establish separate settlements in the United States or on its borders. By the mid-1850s he had become a major spokesman for black emigration. After he moved to Buffalo, New York, in 1841, Whitfield worked as a barber and wrote poetry. Several of his poems had already been published in the North Star when Douglass visited Whitfield in Buffalo in late June 1850. Recounting their visit, Douglass lamented, “That talents so commanding, gifts so rare, poetic powers so distinguished, should be tied to the handle of a razor and buried in the precincts of a barber‘s shop, and that he who possesses them should be consigned, by the malignant arrangements of society, to occupy a position so menial, is painfully disheartening." A delegate to the black convention meeting in Rochester in 1853, Whitfield also endorsed and attended the 1854 emigration convention in Cleveland and was commissioned to investigate Central America as a site for prospective black settlements. Convinced that “full and fair equality can be looked for, only through the existence of national organizations of the different races," Whitfield hoped that the emigration of black Americans would contribute to the emergence of a powerful and independent black nation in the American hemisphere. Before leaving Buffalo around 1859, Whitfield published a volume of poetry, America and Other Poems (Buffalo, 1853), which he dedicated to Martin R. Delany. Later poems appeared in the Liberator the San Francisco Pacific Appeal and the San Francisco Elevator. After the Civil War, Whitfield's principal residence seems to have been in San Francisco, though he also lived in Portland, Oregon, and in Idaho. Between 1864 and 1869 he was Masonic Grand Master of California. Joan R. Sherman, “James Monroe Whitfield, Poet and Emigrationist: A Voice of Protest and Despair," JNH 57: 169-76 (April 1972); Miller, Search for a Black Nationality 137-40; Delany, Condition of the Colored People 132; J. M. Whitfield to Editor, 15 November 1853, in FDP 25 November 1853; ASB 24 August 1850 —able,
because it contained the best argument on
that side of the question.

There is an assumption running through
all the argumments in favor of this movement,
which, in my opinion, is erroneous; viz:—that the colored people can do nothing to el
evate themselves to an equality with the
whites in this country; and that those who
remain in the country are hopelessly and
supinely hugging the delusion that their
enemies are going to elevate them from an
innate love of justice. This position is stat
ed in the Voice of the Fugitive thus: "A
man that would cling to the wreck of a sink
ing craft, simply because it perchance might
have been the place of his birth, while there
was ample means of escape to a good boat,
are thereby to assist others who are lodged
upon broken fragments, who would other
wise perish and die, is not only guilty of su
icide, but is not to be trusted with the lives
and liberties of others," &c.

Now, those who assume the above position
are mistaken in their view of the post of
duty; they certainly manifest a becoming
disposition to be away from the post of dan
ger.

The men who assembled in Rochester in
July, 1853, are not clinging to a wreck.—They are contending hand to hand with a
giant, though vincible prejudice; they know
that just so sure as justice rules on high, the
arm of the Omnipotent is on their side; they
have calculated the cost of victory, and
are determined to fight manfully until the
end. They feel their identity with the three
million slaves in this country, and no con
sideration of personal case will make them
desert them.

We place here, on this stage of action,
by Providence; and this is the field where
our labors are most needed. Manhood, which
will be felt elsewhere, will be felt here.—That which will not make itself respected
here, will hardly command respect elsewhere.
Crummell, Garnett, Ward, and others, who
had made their mark here, and their migra
tion elsewhere, was rather in obedience to
their discretion that their valor.

To call those, who, through fear, or love
of case, desert the great battle of human
rights and human brotherhood, now being
waged in this country, "bold architects of
their own fortunes," is perhaps well enough;
but for my part I admire the Penningtons
and Douglasses, who, though honored abroad,
preferred to return and have a common des-

tiny with their race. It certainly is a mis
nomer to call an ex-parte gathering, like that
called to assemble at Cleveland, a National
Convention. However, if the friends of the
cause can affored to issue such a Call, we have
no reason to complain.

When in Boston, in 1851, I glanced hastily
at a copy of M. R. Delany, M. D., on the des
tiny of the colored race. That argus-eyed
friend of liberty and equality, W. L. Garri
son, remaked in relation to it, "That it ad
mitted the necessity and urged the duty of
emigration, and thereby surrendered the
whole ground claimed by Colonizationists;
for if you admit that the colored man can
not be elevated here—that there is an im
passable gulph between them and the whites,
and they must remove, then the Coloniza
tionist were right, and Africa was as much
entitled to consideration, as any other part
of the globe"—a consideration to which, I
think, every unprejudiced mind must come.

J. C. H.