My dear Sir,

Do gra[nt] the favor asked for in the letter enclosed, and oblige, very truly Yours,

Frederick Douglass

Rochester, June 1st. 1852—

My dear SirBirney, James Gillespie

Son of a wealthy Kentucky slaveowner, James Gillespie Birney (1792-1857) moved to Alabama in 1818. There he helped shape the antislavery features of the state's new constitution and served one term in the state legislature. Birney was a leading colonizationist and advocate of gradual emancipation from the mid-1820s to 1834, when he publicly endorsed immediate emancipation and freed his six slaves. He published the antislavery newspaper the Philanthropist, first in Kentucky and then in Ohio. Birney served as executive secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in the late 1830s and as the Liberty party's presidential candidate in 1840 and 1844. Betty Fladeland, James Gillespie Birney: Slaveholder to Abolitionist (1955; New York, 1969); NCAB, 2:312-13; DAB, 2:291-94. ,

We beg to apprize you that the Rochester Ladies Anti Slavery Society (of whose charcter & objects—please learn from the enclosed Circular) intend to publish the first number of an Anti Slavery Annual of about two hundred pages Entitled "Anti Slavery Autographs" in which they wish to record the testimony of as many distinguished persons as they can against the great sin of our age and nation American Slavery—

It is believed that such a publication as that contemplated, will be the means of engaging the attention of many new friends to the Anti Slavery cause—a cause, which alas! for the poor slave is far from popular, and has but few attractions at present for any but the most serious and humane—

There are in our community as in most others, a large class of persons who need the incitement afforded by the example of acknowledged good and great people, as well as the considerations of justice, love, and mercy, to induce them to unite with an unpopular cause—the want to present at once to the eye and to the mind of the multitude the glorious fact, that many whom they esteem as authors, and Philanthropists, as worthy of all honor are men, and women, who have hearts to feel for the despised American Slave—

With a similar fact in view, the Society will publish "Anti Slavery Autographs" in a substantial form, and in elegant style

The beauty of its exterior will commend it as a suitable Christmas or New Years gift while its contents will abound with earnest and heartful appeals to the humane sentiments and christian principles of the reader unalloyed with the trifling matter which too often fills the pages of Christmas books—

As the name imports the "Autograph" is to be a book of Autographs—nevertheless it is hoped by the Society that Each writer will at least occupy, from four to six pages of the book

Now dear Sir the object of this letter as you have perhaps already suspected is to solicit a contribution from your pen for the forth coming volume—In the Slaves name and for his sake we ask it—May we not have it? We are sure that nothing will stand in the way of our petition but the multitude of your engagements—and yet the request is so small a demand upon your time that we cannot but think we shall have our petition granted—

We need not advise you, that your name is of great value to any good cause to which it is given—It is linked with the "nobility" of good deeds, and the love, and honor, which encircle it are the common property of the oppressed of every land, and of every color,—We would claim a share in this common fund for our heart-broken brothers and Sisters in bonds—they can speak only thro those who "remember them as bound with them"—their poor dumb cause which has been so long neglected appeals even now to God! Let us hasten to their deliverance and do what we may to avert the just judgments which ever follow

in the wake of great national crimes—

All communications for the "Autograph" must be in hand by the last of August—Hoping that you will favor us with a favorable and speedy response I am dear Sir for the Slave and in behalf of the Society which I represent

Susan F. [Porter] Prest

We send you a list of the names of those individuals whom we have solicited to write—Rev H. H. [Beecher] Mrs H. B. Stowe H. W. Longfellow J. G. Whittier Gerrit SmithSmith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71. Frederick Douglass W. Goodell R. W. Emerson Prof J. H. Raymond Dr. McCune Smith William & Mary Howitt Charles Dickens Douglas [Jerold] [F. Bolle] Canly Jos Sturge Dr. Campbell Robert Chambers Tennyson &c &c