WILLIAM WRIGHT¹Probably William Wright, a Quaker and abolitionist, who began assisting slaves to freedom at age sixteen. The grandson of the founder of Columbia, Adams County, Pennsylvania, Wright married Phebe Wierman in 1817, and the couple subsequently became active Underground Railroad conductors. Wright served as manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1840 and as a delegate from Adams County to the Republican state convention, where he supported the nomination of John C. Frémont for president. An account of ‘the experience of a fugitive who lived with the Wrights for six months can be found in The Fugitive Blacksmith; or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington. Wright’s six children and many relatives were also involved in freeing slaves. It is estimated that Wright assisted in freeing nearly one thousand slaves during his lifetime. Snodgrass, The Underground Railroad, 2:590; Still, Underground Railroad, 691-95. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Columbia, Pa. 17 Nov[ember] 1854.

MR. EDITOR:
SIR:—
Your argument on the subject of “Prejudice,” as reported in the Standard,²Held in Syracuse, New York, on 29-30 September 1854, the semiannual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society was characterized by heated debate. Sparked by a series of resolutions presented by the Business Committee, the morning and afternoon sessions on the first day focused almost exclusively on discord between the organization and the Liberty party, and the larger question whether the U.S. Constitution was “proslavery.” If so, they debated whether members of the society could in good conscience participate (in any fashion, including voting) in government without compromising their principles. As reported in the National Anti-Slavery Standard, William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, Beriah Green, Samuel J. May, Abram Pryne, and Andrew T. Foss led the discussion that ensued. NASS, 7 October 1854.
I shall not attempt to follow, but will take your own sentiments as found under the editorial head of your paper of Oct 6th.³Wright refers to an editorial item in the 6 October 1854 issue of Frederick Douglass’ Paper, entitled “State Convention of the Liberty Party—Semi-Annual Meeting of the American A. S. Society—The Jerry Rescue Celebration.” The editorial recounts and comments on a heated discussion at a special meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society held in Syracuse, New York, in which Gerrit Smith, William Lloyd Garrison, William Wells Brown, Charles Lenox Remond, Beriah Green, and Frederick Douglass debated the subject of prejudice. According to Douglass, Smith asked Remond to provide a philosophical explanation for prejudice, to which Remond replied, “It’s the black man’s color.” FDP, 6 October 1854.
You assert that “Poor RemondRemond, Charles Lenox

Charles Lenox Remond (1810-73), the first black lecturer hired by any antislavery society, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to the daughter of a black hero of the American Revolution and a former slave from Curaçao. In his youth, he learned about the horrors of slavery from his father and experienced the segregation and discrimination practiced by Northern whites. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, Remond read David Walker’s Appeal and became acquainted with William Lloyd Garrison, which led him to dedicate his life to abolitionism. Remond became active in reform movements at an early age. A member of the Colored Association of Massachusetts when it merged with the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, he became an officer in the latter organization. He became an agent for the Liberator and joined the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society shortly thereafter. In 1838 he began lecturing for the American Anti-Slavery Society. Both his color and his ability made him a very popular speaker in both the United States and Great Britain, where he attended the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention as a delegate in 1840 in London. Remond was the sole black lecturer for antislavery societies until Frederick Douglass began speaking in 1842. For a time, Remond and Douglass worked the lecture circuit together. Douglass admired Remond, the more experienced speaker, and named a son for him. Remond traveled and lectured in the British Isles for some sixteen months. Upon his return, Remond was employed as a lecture agent by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Through the 1840s, however, Remond remained a steadfast Garrisonian while Douglass began to favor political action to end slavery, and their friendship suffered. Their close association was troubled as a rift between Douglass and Garrison threatened, and in 1852 Remond announced his intention to cancel his subscription to Frederick Douglass' Paper in protest against Douglass's adoption of non-Garrisonian views of the U.S. Constitution. Their goals, however, remained the same, and like Douglass, Remond recruited black soldiers for the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. After the war, just before his death, Remond urged abolitionists to continue their fight by combatting the racial prejudice that persisted in both the North and South after the end of slavery. Illness curtailed his reform activities after the war. Les Wallace, "Charles Lenox Remond: The Lost Prince of Abolitionism," NHB, 40:696-701 (May-June 1977); William E. Ward, "Charles Lenox Remond: Black Abolitionist, 1838-1873" (Ph.D. diss., Clark University, 1977); FDP, 20 May 1852; New York Daily Times, 26 December 1873; NNE, 8 January 1874; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 46; NCAB, 2:303; DAB, 15:499-500. ⁴Charles Lenox Remond (1810-73), the first black lecturer hired by any antislavery society, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to the daughter of a black hero of the American Revolution and a former slave from Curacao. In his youth, he learned about the horrors of slavery from his father and experienced the segregation and discrimination practiced by Northern whites. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, Remond read David Walker’s Appeal and became acquainted with William Lloyd Garrison, which led him to dedicate his life to abolitionism. He became an agent for the Liberator and joined the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society shortly thereafter. In 1838 he began lecturing for the American Anti-Slavery Society. Both his color and his ability made him a very popular speaker in both the United States and Great Britain, where he attended the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention as a delegate in 1840. Remond was the sole black lecturer for antislavery societies until Frederick Douglass began speaking in 1842. For a time, Remond and Douglass worked the lecture circuit together. Douglass admired Remond, the more experienced speaker, and named a son for him. Through the 1840s, however, Remond remained a steadfast Garrisonian while Douglass began to favor political action to end slavery, and their friendship suffered. Their goals, however, remained the same, and like Douglass, Remond recruited black soldiers for the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. After the war, just before his death, Remond urged abolitionists to continue their fight by combatting the racial prejudice that persisted in both the North and South after the end of slavery. Les Wallace, "Charles Lenox Remond: The Lost Prince of Abolitionism," NHB, 40:696-701 (May-June 1977); William E. Ward, "Charles Lenox Remond: Black Abolitionist, 1838-1873" (Ph.D. diss., Clark University, 1977); NCAB, 2:303; DAB, 15:499-500. foolishly affirmed his belief that it was the black man’s color—an assertion which, if true, takes this hateful prejudice out of the category of sin, pride and folly, and makes it natural, and therefore unblameworthy; for, to like black, blue, green, or yellow, or to like neither black, blue, green or yellow, is a mere matter of taste, and no one can be blamed for their preference either way, or neither way; but very different is this to the feeling we denominate ‘prejudice against color;’ ‘tis the very worst form and manifestation of human pride, selfishness and hatred, and which would manifest itself quite as violently, and as wickedly, if the victims were as white as the driven snow, instead of being black.”
The above extract embraces the whole force of your argument; and it is quite strange, friend Douglass, that this preyudice, which you regard as sinful when applied to condition, and which Mr. GreenGreen, Beriah

Congregational minister and abolitionist Beriah Green (1795-1874) was a graduate of Middlebury College and Andover Seminary. He served as a professor at Western Reserve College, becoming active in antislavery agitation during his tenure there Western Reserve College (1830-33). He presided at the organization of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia in December 1833 and was president (1833-43) of the racially integrated manual-labor school, Oneida Institute, near Whitesboro, New York. A founding member of the Liberty party, Green held back from the Free Soil fusion of 1848, fearing a dilution of antislavery principles. In 1843 he headed a secession from the Whitesboro Presbyterian Church to serve as pastor of the abolitionist Congregational Church in Whitesboro until 1867. Beriah Green, Sermons and Discourses with Brief Biographical Hints (New York, 1860), 165-67, 231-41; Garrison and Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 3:211; Sewell, Ballots for Freedom, 98n, 107; Milton C. Sernett, Abolition’s Axe: Beriah Green, Oneida Institute, and the Black Freedom Struggle (Syracuse, N.Y., 1986); John R. McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830-1865 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984), 147; NCAB, 2:326; DAB, 7:539-40. ⁵Probably Beriah Green (1795-1874), an early immediate abolitionist who chaired the founding convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. A graduate of Middlebury College and Andover Seminary, Green served as a professor at Western Reserve College. He was the founder and president, from 1833 to its closing in 1844, of the Oneida Institute, a pioneering interracial college, in Whiteboro, New York. Green was active in the early Liberty party and later in Gerrit Smith’s band of radical political abolitionists. Later, he ministered to an antislavery Congregational Church in Whiteboro until 1867. Milton C. Sernett, Abolition’s Axe: Beriah Green, Oneida Institute, and the Black Freedom Struggle (Syracuse, N.Y., 1986); John R. McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830-1865 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984), 147; DAB, 7:539-40. characterizes as “murderous everywhere,’ should so far change its nature when applied to color, that it loses its rank in the “category of sin,’ and dwindles into sinless “preference,” or matter of taste. It will require a micro-scopic vision to discover the point or dividing line between “prejudice and preference.” It must be as narrow as that which separates “light from heat," and its geographical boundary must lie between justice and injustice. I confess, I have no chart that will guide me to that peculiar spot. It does, however, appear to my mind that if it be sinful for this “murderous prejudice” to inflict its penalties on any people, on account of their condition, (when the fault of that condition may in part be the result of their own imprudent actors,) it would be equally sinful, if not more so, when applied to their complexions over which they can have no control.
Therefore, I am inclined to believe that Mr. R.⁶Charles Lenox Remond. would not have come nearer the mark if he had have been wise enough to have used the term condition, instead of color.
I do most heartily agree with your description of both “prejudice and preference.” They are so universal in their nature and actions, that they

do not separately belong to any one complexion, but are fostered by all complexions. You have admitted that sinless “preference” may rest on color; and until you prove that its concomitant “prejudice” may not also be against color, you will not have given a good reason why Remond’s “admission” was a “foolish one.”
Now, this leads us to the important inquiry, From whence do these “prejudices” and “preferences” emanate? Are they not wholly instinctive in their nature, and do they not represent the various emanations of the human heart, from the most exalted purity to the most debasing corruption?
I assert that they are purely instinctive, and are not “endowed with brains,” or the “reasoning faculties,” or they would at least be entitled to “toleration," and might possibly be to the respect of mankind. They possess the same senses, and are guided by the same “light.” They have the same power of seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling, and therefore, it is very natural they should be attracted by the same objects. Or will you have the one roaming over the world in search of condition, while the other is revelling amid the variegated hues of complexion. It appears to my mind that “prejudice” is but “preference” intensified by “human pride, selfishness and hatred;” and that the same persons may be victimized by its influence in one community and idolized in another, and all on account of their complexions. For the proof of this assertion, I will refer you to Messrs. Douglass, Remond, Garnett,⁷Henry Highland Garnett. Pennington⁸James W. C. Pennington. and Ward,⁹Samuel Ringgold Ward, and all others who have visited England, Ireland and Wales, either on their own business, or as missionaries in the cause of the slaves, or travelled throughout New England, as compared with Pennsylvania.
It will scarcely be denied that New England abolitionists have shown such a preference for the talents of colored men, that they have often eulogized their public efforts far beyond their own highest conception of their merits, and very far beyond what their “own people” conceived they were justly entitled to. Now, if this “prejudice” was founded on condition, it would not exist among the colored people themselves, because their con
dition and connexion with respect to liberty and slavery being the same, no cause for prejudice would exist; yet, however unwilling we may be to confess it, this same prejudice exercises an evil influence among the colored people, and has often affected the stability of their institutions, and the happiness of their social circles.
I will now refer to an argument used by Mr. Remond, which I have not seen contradicted, viz: “That color was the pivot on which this whole question turned.”¹⁰The issue that dominated the final sessions of the semiannual meeting of the American
Anti-Slavery Society was triggered by Remond, who stated that “so far from advocating the anti-slavery character of the Constitution and Government, it [was] better . . . to see how far there [was] freedom in our atmosphere.” Following an exchange between Remond and William Wells Brown (who maintained that more was being done in Europe to "ameliorate the condition of the people than in America"), Garrison asked Brown to discuss whether Europeans suffered from what he termed “colourphobia.” Brown stated that prejudice originated in “slave states because slavery existed there,” and that in Europe he had neither witnessed nor experienced any "prejudice against a person because of colour." His conclusion, as a result, was that “prejudice against colour [was] not known” outside America and that “it [was] prejudice against condition, not colour; only the colour is a mark to instance the condition.” Beriah Green concurred, noting that “colourphobia [was] what in Europe [was] called caste, and in the Bible respect of persons.” He then stated that “colour was of no account [and that] it [was] only the index of slavery, and despised for that cause.” Green concluded by arguing, “In some parts of the world, and at some ages of the world, this colour was considered attractive.” Both Remond and Gerrit Smith disagreed, maintaining that the “prejudice against colour” was “deeper than the cord of caste.” When queried by Green, however, Remond did concede that (in the United States) the condition of being enslaved did “intensify this prejudice.” At the conclusion of the final session Garrison made a plea for unity by stating that “we must not be divided into Liberty Party, Garrisonians and Free Democrats when the South is united,” but instead “let our anti-slavery be No. 1; our party and sect No. 100.” Greeted by cheers, Garrison, however, then remarked that “every anti-slavery man [was] of necessity a Disunionist” and that even though “Gerrit Smith [thought] he [could] make the Constitution anti-slavery ... when he [had] done it, he [could] make no one believe it.” Garrison concluded the session by noting that calling the U.S. government a Democracy “was an outrage upon man’s understanding.” NASS, 7 October 1854.
Now, if this be true, it is morally certain that if there

was no pivot, or resting place, there would be no “turning,” which, being legitimately interpreted, means that if there were no difference in the complexion of the people of this count[r]y, there would be no complexional prejudice.
It was both ingenious and logical in Mr. Green to say that “color was of no account.” By this assertion he probably meant to show that this prejudice had not only existed, but could continue to exist without the attracting allurements of color. To this I will agree as an ancient question; and as it affected ancient nationalities, and the Quakers, Jews, Catholics, North American Indians, and perhaps a few other—and I will accept his definition as a “Biblical” question. It was the scourge of the Children of Israel, and its potency was felt by both Jews and Gentiles. It was visible at the Crucifixion of Christ, and the martyrdom of the Apostles, as well as in the Holy Cross and the Protestant Reformation.
Then the pivot on which this prejudice rested or turned, was the invasion of some territory—national feud—birthright claim to sovereignty, or the profession of some new, pure, or idolatrous faith, or worldly distinctions, such as poverty and wealth, &c. But so far as this prejudice affects the colored population of this country, more of these impediments exist. They have no peculiar titles to territories, honors or wealth; and here, in this country, poverty is no crime.
They are not the advocates of any unpopular tenets of religious faith, and have no peculiar religion of their own, but have fostered and adopted the religious faith of those with whom they are surrounded.—Therefore, looking at this subject in the light of the past and present, I say I must differ with him when I say, that as an American question, the pivot on which this prejudice rests, is the “COLOR OF THE SKIN.”
W. W.Wright, William

Probably William Wright, a Quaker and abolitionist, who began assisting slaves to freedom at age sixteen. The grandson of the founder of Columbia, Adams County, Pennsylvania, Wright married Phebe Wierman in 1817, and the couple subsequently became active Underground Railroad conductors. Wright served as manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1840 and as a delegate from Adams County to the Republican state convention, where he supported the nomination of John C. Frémont for president. An account of ‘the experience of a fugitive who lived with the Wrights for six months can be found in The Fugitive Blacksmith; or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington. Wright’s six children and many relatives were also involved in freeing slaves. It is estimated that Wright assisted in freeing nearly one thousand slaves during his lifetime. Snodgrass, The Underground Railroad, 2:590; Still, Underground Railroad, 691-95.
PLIr: FDP, 1 December 1854.