Frederick Douglass, Esq.:
Dear Sir:—
Suffering severely from sickness, I have been prevented until now from writing you a line or two in reference to our Commencement.
First— with regard to my sickness; I was thrown from a chaise on the 2d of this month and had my left leg broken, besides sustaining other severe injuries. I am happy to add, however, that I am now rapidly recovering and hope in a few weeks to throw aside the crutches which I am now compelled to use.
Our Commencement took place on the 16th of this month. It would have rejoiced me to have had you with us. The assemblage was immense. Persons were present from every town in the county, and not a few from "afar-off" cities and villages. The day also was bright and beautiful, and everything conspired to make the season an agreeable and memorable one.
On the day previous to the Commencement, Rev. Samuel J. May of Syracuse addressed the College Association. Of course I was unable to be present, but the address, I hear, was grand indeed. The subject was "Man, his relations, duties and responsibilities." It is to be printed.
Charles R. Sedgwick, Esq., also of Syracuse, was expected to address the Student's Literary Society; but for some reason he did not appear, whereupon Mr. May delivered another address, taking for his subject "George Thompson, his labors, struggles and achievements." This address gave great satisfaction, as Mr. May developed some points in the history of Mr. Thompson which were before unknown to his audience, and which served to fasten the great reformer deeper in the hearts of those who before honored and revered him.
The exercises of Commencement Day came next. The students did themselves lasting credit and honor. Indeed it could hardly have been otherwise. The young men and women who come here are of granite, not as to their hearts, but as to mind and character. What would fops and empty-heads do where manual labor is practiced, and where prejudice against color is scorned at, and where woman is not a subordinate, but may exercise her rights in common with man? The subjects of orations and essays were well selected. I give you a specimen or two—"Thought, the basis of Character;" "The Good Man, the only Positive Man;" "Soul-Sculpture;" "True Glory;" "Decision of Character;" "What is Life?;" "Man, his own Builder;" "Blessings Brighter as they take their Flight;" "The Perception of the Beautiful;" "The crushed flower yields the sweetest Odor." Only lady read an allegory, and two others delivered orations. The subject of one, "The Thimble;" and of the other, "Woman." I send you a copy of the latter for publication. It is an eloquent production, and considering that orations on such occasions are limited in length to ten or twelve minutes, does infinite credit to its author.
The quotation from Tennyson with which the oration closes is beautiful and appropriate.
"Woman is not undeveloped man
But diverse."
This is the philosophic view of the subject. Man and woman—equal in rights, but different in duties, cares and responsibilities.
One lady also delivered a poem—subject, "Mabel." I intend also to get a copy of this production and send you. I am sure you will be pleased with it. It is founded on facts in the history of Emily Russell. Emily, you know, was the beautiful slave girl whose case excited so much sympathy more than a year ago. Bruin refused to take less than eighteen hundred dollars for her, and took her South; but the angel of Death smote her in mercy before she reached New Orleans, and thus the spoiler lost his victim.
The Russell family descended from a white woman, who, while quite a girl, was brought over from the West Indies in company with several slaves by a relative of Admiral Cockburn, and settled near Alexandria in Virginia. Had some competent person befriended this family at an early period, and thoroughly investigated their case, they would never have worn the chains and yoke of slavery.—A sister of Emily is now a member of this school.
I pass now to make a remark or two in reference to the College in general. We received our charter last spring, and in this respect are on an equality with any college in the land. What remains for the friends of progress is evident. Their countenance and co-operation we ought to have—their countenance and co-operation we must have. No greater or more effective anti-slavery instrumentality exists in America than New York Central Collegee. Every blow struck here is effective to the killing of slavery and its attendant evil, prejudice against color. Too much honor cannot be awarded to the noble men who conceived this enterprise, nor too much credit to those who are laboring in and out of season to bring it to the favorable notice of the public. I say it, and would reprint it a thousand times were it necessary, that New York Central College commends itself in a peculiar degree to the hearts and consciences of those who love truth, and justice, and humanity.
The legislature has refused us an appropriation. No matter for that, we expect to succeed. Having the right, why should we not, if we but exercise patience, judgment and discretion? Last term there were nearly one hundred and forty students here, and the next term we expect a larger number still.—Improvements are going on rapidly on the college grounds, and we hope soon to be in a state to gratify by our outward looks the taste of those who are most fastidious as to appearances.
The village of McGrawville is not the most beautiful to look at, nevertheless it is surrounded by scenery truly grand and magnificent. Indeed this whole region of country cannot fail to find favor with those who love whatever in nature is beautufil and sublime.
The people of McGrawville are remarkable also for their benevolence and hospitality. We are four miles from Cortlandville, and though somewhat difficult of access now, on the completion of the Birmingham and Syracuse Rail-road, we shall be within ninety minute's ride of the latter place, and, of course, easily reached.
You have, doubtless, read the legislative debates on the college appropriation. There were no objections it seems to offering to the colored man the highest facilities for acquiring an education. Members were willing to endow colleges for his especial benefit, and to furnish them, if need be, with all white professors or colored professors; not to bring together the colored man and the white girl, ah, that was not to be endured. And why not? Says one Mr. Bishop, familiarity lessons those objections which exist. And what now? The colored man and white girl then brought together might likely enough fall in love with each other, and naturally enough finish it off by marrying.—Now, setting aside the philosophy and good sense of friend Bishop's remark, though perhaps he was not aware of its philosophy and good sense when he made it, can there be anything more undignified and absolutely ridiculous than such talk and that of Terris Thompson in so grave an assemblage as ought to be the legislature of the State of New York? Better by far proclaim that the African is incapable of mental and moral improvement. Better bang away on the old doctrine of inferiority, and put out the black man's eyes and cast off his limbs and then taunt him because he can neither see nor walk. This, though mean, would at least have a dignity about it which the recent debates of that class of legislators to which I have alluded certainly fail to show. If it is amalgamation these men wish to prevent, they have assuredly missed their figure.—What has been will be. Since the races were introduced into this country they have been amalgamating, and in all probability will continue to do so, until, unless there be fresh importations from Africa, there will not be in the course of two or at least three hundred years a purely black man to be found in all this vast country. What means it that on every hand are men in such large numbers the mangroos, the samba, the mulatto and the quadroon? Such men need not be blind because they are mean.
But I have said there was philosophy in friend Bishop's remark, and so there is.—"Familiarity lessens those objections to races which exist." I hope the African race will accept this compliment, and labor to vie with the white man in attaining to whatever is good and honest and true. I close with a remark further: Self-help, friend Douglass, is the idea which needs to be presented upon the colored people of this country. Others have been enslaved as truly as they. Two-thirds of the population of Europe were in servitude at the close of the Saxon heptarchy. This servitude was of different degrees, but it was servitude nevertheless. There were in those days, villains, bordars, cottars, and serfs, or thralls, and certainly one in every seven of these was an absolute slave. These persons were marketable commodities, and put upon a level with cattle, and like cattle, were used as money and legal tender. Their value was fixed by law, one slave being equivalent to four oxen. How different now. The African race, as a race, is reputed to have less energy than the Anglo Saxon. But then it is also said, that when communities begin to speak and read the language of the people among whom they are, it is as if they had already become impregnated with the blood of the people, whose language they speak.—God grant, that so far as energy, at least, is concerned, the African race, and their descendants in this country, may not prove this false.
I was in conversation with a friend not many days ago, who told me that he believed not fifty years would elapse before slavery in this country would have an end. I believe he is not far from correct. At any rate, I feel encouraged. Though gloom and sadness surround us, yet glorious sunbeams are playing in our pathway.
"Worth, not birth, SHALL rule mankind,
And be acknowledged stronger."
We have a glorious destiny to achieve, and to achieve here. I say here. Croton is the soul who will betake himself to Africa, unless he goes to carry the spirit of Christianity and civilization, where the same blue heavens hang over him here as in Africa, and the same green earth is so lavi[shingly spread out beneath him—while wisdom and power are written upon the portals of the Universe here, as true as is Africa, and correction and reproof upon its walls—while God reigns here no less than in Africa, and while we are always at home wherever our Father is. I say here, for, deeply as the white man has injured the black, he will abandon and turn from the task of sending away by force his own near friends, relatives, and acquaintances. What that destiny is, I may write at some future time. Of course I shall only give my opinion. At present, it is sufficient, as indeed it is always incumbent upon us, to acquit ourselves like men. We need to be energetic, not slothful; firm, not wavering; united, not clannish. We need to get wisdom, and get understanding. We need to be true to our word, true to our nature, true to our God. And this further we need to remember, and this let us never forget, that as the free colored people of the North take one step upward, so they unlink one of the chains of slavery.
Faithfully Yours,
Wm. G. Allen.Allen, William G.

Son of a free black mother and a white immigrant father, William G. Allen (1820–?) grew up in southeastern Virginia. After graduating from the Oneida Institute in New York, Allen taught school in Canada and New York. Allen was a popular lecturer and was regarded as an expert on black history and literature. In 1844, while teaching in Troy, New York, he assisted Henry Highland Garnet in editing the National Watchman, a temperance and abolitionist newspaper aimed at black readers. Shortly after having its title changed to the Clarion, the short-lived paper failed in 1847. No issues are known to have survived. In 1850 Allen became a professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at New York Central College in McGrawville, New York, where he caused a public furor by marrying one of his white female students in 1852. The following year the Allens sailed to Great Britain, where William lectured for the abolitionist cause, and both he and his wife operated a series of small schools. Hutton, Early Black Press in America, 9; R. J. M. Blackett, “William G. Allen: The Forgotten Professor,” CWH, 26:39–52 (March 1980); Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:135–36n; ANB, 1:346–47.
McGrawville, July 27th, 1851.