James McCune Smith to Frederick Douglass, October 8, 1851
JAMES MCCUNE SMITH1James McCune Smith (1813–65), a prominent black physician, abolitionist, and writer, was born in New York City to an enslaved father and a self-emancipated mother. He attended the New York African Free School, but was denied admission to Columbia, Geneva Medical College, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He turned to the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he received a B.A. (1835), M.A. (1836), and M.D. (1837). Upon returning to New York, he opened a pharmacy and medical practice, catering to both blacks and whites. He also became involved in the abolitionist movement, serving as an associate editor of the Colored American in 1839, contributing regularly to the Anglo-African Magazine, and writing correspondence for the North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper under the pseudonym “Communipaw.” Smith also wrote the introduction to Douglass’s second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). In 1861 Smith helped to finance the revival of the Weekly Anglo-African to oppose black colonization and emigration. He was also a prominent member of the New York City Young Men’s Association, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the New York African Society for Mutual Relief. He was the sole attending physician of the Society for the Promotion of Education among Colored Children, a member and vestryman of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and a trustee of the New York Society for the Promotion of Education among Colored Children. In 1863 Wilberforce College appointed Smith professor of anthropology, but illness kept him from assuming his post. Lib, 1 June 1838; FDP, 18 May 1855; Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 2:7–19; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 243; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 90–92, 103, 110; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 115, 134; Freeman, “Free Negro in New York City,” 40–42, 177, 186, 195, 200, 247, 276, 286, 325, 353, 393; DAB, 27:288–89. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS
New York, [N.Y.] 8 Oct[ober] 1851.
MR. EDITOR:—
“Beneath an October sun,”2In an address given to a Whig convention in Richmond, Virginia, on 5 October 1840, Daniel Webster remarked, “I say that standing here, in the capitol of Virginia, beneath an October sun, in the midst of this assemblage, before the entire country, and upon all the responsibility which belongs to me, I say, that there is no power, direct or indirect, in Congress or the General Government, to interfere, in the slightest degree, with the institutions of the South.” Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, “The Massachusetts Proposition for Abolishing the Slavery Representation as Guaranteed by the Constitution,” Southern Literary Messenger, 460 (August 1845). I beg to make to you the following proposals, in the hope that the friends of Freedom in both Hemispheres will help carry them out.
lst. That Frederick Douglass’ Paper shall, on and after the 1st of January, 1852 be, issued SEMI-WEEKLY.
2d. That Two Thousand Dollars shall be raised for that purpose by subscribers, in the following classes.
| ----------- | ---- | --------- | |
| Two hundred | subscribers to pay, each | $1— | $200,00 |
| One hundred | " " | 3.— | 300,00 |
| One hundred | " " | 5— | 500,00 |
| One hundred | " " | 10— | 1000,00 |
| $2000,00 |
All of this to be paid in by the 1st of December, 1851, and to be a gift to the semi-weekly paper.
3d. The price of the paper not to be raised during the year 1852, but to be placed at a paying mark the following year, say $2,50 or $3,00. My belief is, that if exertions be made to increase the number of advertisements, these will pay enough to render any increase of price of subscription unnecessary.
4th. That negotiations be made to engage, at a fair rate, the services of Samuel R. Ward, as an assistant Editor of the Semi-weekly, and if neccessary, a separate fund be subscribed for that purpose.
The reasons for this more frequent issue, and additional strength for your paper, are very obvious. The battle thickens and we must strike oftener and harder. We need an organ through which to strike, and around which to rally. It must be an organ of our own: and we must become its body guard if we would hold safely our wives and little ones in the homes which God has ordained for them. We need an organ, not only to battle against our foes, but also, to cheer each other on in the struggle. The hour has come when to be quiet any longer, is to be criminally recreant. We must "up and at ‘em.”3A state of greater activity or excitement; persistent and fervent in one’s actions. Our old demoniac foe, the colonization scheme,4The movement to support African colonization enjoyed a brief resurgence in popularity in the early 1850s. After granting independence to Liberia, the American Colonization Society was able to concentrate on emigration. The society was also more stable financially in the early 1850s as a result of bequests from several wealthy patrons. Colonization in general gained the approval of a few African Americans who despaired of their subservient condition and lack of civil and political rights in the United States. In September 1851 E. G. Jones and R. H. Van Dyne led several black New Yorkers in forming a new society to support emigration and the colonization of Africa. The following year, under the leadership of Darius P. Stokes and James Anderson Handy, the first Maryland black convention held at Baltimore endorsed Liberian settlement. NASS, 9 November 1851; Staudenraus, African Colonization Movement, 240–43; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:237n, 319–20n. has entrenched on near ground, and has mounted near guns: moreover,
With such a cry when angels fell,
Fiends raised the banner cry of Hell!5Smith misquotes the sixth canto of Sir Walter Scott’s Lady of the Lake, “As all the fiends from heaven that fell / Had pealed the banner-cry of hell!” Sir Walter Scott, The Lady of the Lake (New York, 1928), 187.
they shout over the advent to their ranks of one or two men in colored skins, whom interest, present, or prospective, has led to desert the good cause. From issuing a monthly Journal at Washington,6The American Colonization Society published the monthly African Repository in Washington, D.C., from March 1825 to January 1892. Staudenraus, African Colonization Movement, 240–43. they now pour out their distilled venom and cant thro’ a weekly Journal. Cravens are we, if our organ do not put on another barrel and fire two rounds to their one—all the while looking forward to the early day when we shall have a six shooter—that is, a daily.
One most desirable thing may be accomplished by this more frequent issue. We shall hear from you more frequently. We want more of you; and want all your time to be devoted to your columns. I perceive you growing stronger, and believe that to be in you, which, if rightly gout out, will mainly aid us through, and guide us past our present perils. As a living embodiment of all the philosophy of our side, we must hold you up and keep you up before the gaze of men.—We need also to have more put on record, that flows from the soul of noble Samuel Ward. We must place him in a position
where he can think and write more for the cause. With such a team, we are well prepared to fight the Devil of oppression and all his satanic cohorts.
If you would send down our way an active canvasser, to solicit advertisements for the Semi-weekly issue, it would doubtless pay. And if you could secure a New York correspondent, who would furnish each number of your paper with something from hereabouts, it would doubtless increase your circulation in this city.
We had a small but spirited meeting in Shiloh church7The First Colored Presbyterian Church of New York City was commonly known as the Shiloh Church. Founded in 1822 by Samuel Cornish, Shiloh served as the host for numerous abolition and reform meetings. Prominent pastors of the church included Cornish (1822–28), Theodore S. Wright (1828–47), James W. C. Pennington (1848–55), and Henry Highland Garnet (1855–64). Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 3:188n. basement last night, to raise money to defend the Christiana Patriots,8On 11 September 1851 Maryland planter Edward Gorsuch, accompanied by a party of neighbors, attempted to recover two of his runaway slaves in Christiana, Pennsylvania. The fugitives found refuge in the home of William Parker (1822–27), who himself had escaped slavery in 1839. Parker refused to turn over the fugitives to Gorsuch, and the predominantly black community rallied against the slave catchers. A fight broke out during which Gorsuch was killed and the other whites driven off. Parker and several other black participants in the affair fled to Canada, where they settled permanently. Douglass himself assisted Parker during his secret passage through Rochester. Thirty-six blacks and five whites were eventually indicted for treason, but none was successfully prosecuted. William Parker, “The Freedman’s Story,” Atlantic Monthly, 17:152–56 (February 1866), 17:276–95 (March 1866); Katz, Resistance at Christiana, 18–21, 27, 74–80, 92–103, 169–70, 234–35, 260–61, 279; Campbell, Slave Catchers, 99–101, 151–54. and adjourned till next Wednesday when old Zion9Considered the “mother church” of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion movement, New York City’s first Zion church was an old stable and converted cabinetmaker’s shop located on Cross Street, between Mulberry and Orange, where the congregation held meetings as early as 1796. The members built a more permanent structure, usually considered to be the first black church built in New York City, in 1801 at the corner of Leonard and Church Streets. This structure was torn down and a new church built on the site in 1820 and again, after a fire, in 1839. Membership in the Zion church was large and growing in the early nineteenth century, tripling from 763 to 2,356 between 1821 and 1831. David Henry Bradley, A History of the A. M. E. Zion Church, 2 vols. (Nashville, Tenn, 1956), 1:46–48, 50–55, 63, 69, 91, 125, 136–37. will “speak” out on the matter. Rev. Dr. Pennington,10James W. C. Pennington. Wm. P. Powell the facetious,11William Peter Powell (1807–c. 1879), a Garrisonian abolitionist and reformer, was born free in New York, the son of a free woman and an enslaved father. Powell apprenticed as a sailor and lived and worked in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he helped to found a local antislavery society, became one of the first members of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, and joined the American Seaman’s Friend Society. In 1839 he moved to New York City, opening the Colored Seamen’s Home, an employment agency and boardinghouse for black sailors. Powell remained active in abolitionist circles and also supported women’s rights, black self-help, and temperance reform. He served as secretary of the Garrisonian Manhattan Anti—Slavery Society, and was among those who established the Committee of Thirteen, an organization of prominent African Americans opposed to the Fugitive Slave Law and other forms of racial discrimination. In early 1852 he moved to Great Britain, where he remained active in abolitionist circles, returning to the United States in 1861. Upon his return Powell reestablished the Colored Seamen’s Home and in 1863 accepted a commission in the U.S. Navy. During the July 1863 New York draft riots, a white mob looted Powell’s boardinghouse, causing almost $5,000 in property damage. Following the Civil War, he remained an activist seeking to improve the working conditions of African American sailors. Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 3:72n; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 3:302–03n; ANB, 17:786–87. and Bro. T. Downing,12Thomas Downing (1791–1866), a New York restaurant owner, was manumitted at an early age from his enslavement in Accomac County, Virginia. In 1812 he moved north to escape the attempts of his former owner’s heirs to enslave him and fought in the War of 1812. He moved from Philadelphia to New York in 1819 and worked as a caterer until he established his own restaurant, the Oyster House, in the financial district. His success among New York merchants and politicians allowed him to provide a European education to several of his children and to support black benevolent causes such as abolition and African American legal rights. Downing was among those who drafted the 1837 petition seeking to repeal New York property qualifications for black voters and opposed the Fugitive Slave Law by serving on the New York Vigilance Committee and the Committee of Thirteen. New York Colored American, 16 January, 20 February 1841; New York Times, 12 April 1866; New York Herald, 12 April 1866; NASS, 21 April 1866; Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 2:169; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 107, 171; Freeman, “Free Negro in New York City,” 35, 46, 103–04, 128, 138, 197, 236, 285, 295, 394; ANB, 6:846–47. with Rev. C. B. Ray13Charles Bennett Ray (1807–86) was a black minister and journalist from Falmouth, Massachusetts. He attended school in New Bedford and graduated to the Wesleyan Theological Academy, but discrimination there forced him to withdraw. In the 1830s he operated a boot and shoe business in New York City with Samuel Cornish. When Cornish became the primary editor of the New York Colored American in 1837, Ray became a subscription agent for the paper and a traveling reporter, focusing on education, business, and church life. His endorsement of the Colored American in speeches and sermons helped to maintain the publication as a black-funded enterprise. In 1839 Ray took over as owner and chief editor following Cornish’s resignation, but the venture collapsed and ceased publication at the end of 1841. Ray remained an active reformer, supporting the Liberty party and the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and helping to found the New York City Vigilance Committee and the Black Convention Movement. He later worked with Gerrit Smith to select recipients of Smith’s land grants. After 1841 Ray devoted himself to improving black education, serving as president of the New York Society for the Promotion of Education among Colored Children from 1851 to 1865, and returned to the pulpit by holding weekly worship meetings for the poor, disabled, and elderly. In 1845 he became minister of the Bethesda Congregational Church in lower Manhattan, where he remained until 1868. Siebert, Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom, 126; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 2:79–80n; ANB, 18:201–02. were the speakers last night.
Please set me down among the lower tens in the above proposals.
Your brother in bonds,
JAMES M’CUNE SMITH.
PLSr: FDP, 16 October 1851.