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Auburn to Frederick Douglass, September 5, 1856

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AUBURN1Douglass preceded this letter with the heading “LETTER FROM AUBURN,” supplying no clue to the identity of the correspondent. FDP, 5 September 1856. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

[n.p.] [5 September 1856.]
MY DEAR DOUGLASS:—
Your leading, editorial of the 15th inst.,2Douglass published an editorial entitled “Fremont and Dayton” in the “All Rights for All” column of Frederick Douglass’ Paper, transferring his support from Gerrit Smith and Samuel McFarland to the Frémont-Dayton ticket of the Republican party in the upcoming presidential election. Douglass assumed that the abolitionist candidate, Smith, would not win the election. His strategic decision to publicly back Frémont and Dayton was intended to deal a blow to the proslavery movement. FDP, 15 August 1856. gave me a very pleasant surprise. I was not prepared to expect a change of political action so “radical,” notwithstanding I knew you to be a Radical Abolitionist. The reasons which you assign for that change are cogent, and commend my hearty approval.
I have been much perplexed with our position, as Radical Abolitionists, for some weeks past; as it seemed to me, that if we went to the ballot-box, at all, we should, in effect, deposite our votes against, rather than for the end which we earnestly seek to accomplish—the overthrow of Slavery.
I remember that our honored and noble standard bearer, who was nominated at Syracuse, said, on that occasion, that the nomination was made without any expectation of electing our candidate, but only to do honor to our principles.3The Radical Abolition party had held its nominating convention in Syracuse, New York, on 28 May 1856. The approximately two hundred delegates nominated Gerrit Smith and Samuel McFarland of Pennsylvania as their presidential and vice presidential candidates. Smith wrote the party’s address to the public, declaring, “We are ready, not only to co-operate with [the Republican party], but to merge ourselves in it, the moment it shall take the ground, that there is no law for slavery—no real and obligatory law for sinking a man from manhood to chattelhood.” FDP, 6, 20 June 1856; Harlow, Gerrit Smith, 363-64; Stauffer, Black Hearts of Men, 20-22, 24. But it has been a question, with me, whether our Anti-Slavery and Abolition principles would be best honored by depositing our votes for a candidate who had not the remotest chance of election—which would be in effect throwing them away—or by rallying for the support of the candidate of that party, which proposes—in this special emergency, when Slavery is o’erleaping its old boundaries and displaying its piratical flag and raising its bloody battle axe, on the virgin soil of the territories of this Republic, and is seeking to make Slavery universal—to check the outsweeping tide of this terrible tyranny, and hem it in, for the time, within its present limits?
There is no platform which so fully expresses my political convictions, and no Presidential candidate, which could be named, who so fully commands my sympathies and approval, as the platform and candidate of the Radical Abolition Party; and I would go a thousand miles, if need be, to vote for Gerrit Smith, if there were the faintest hope of placing him in the Presidential chair.
I account him the ablest, noblest, best, and most honorable and trustworthy of all men, who have ever been put in nomination for the Chief Magistracy of our Nation, and should rejoice in a fair opportunity, to record my protest against the slanders of those who have maligned him and depreciated his eminent services in Congress. I most heartily wish Gerrit Smith might be nominated for that high office, under such auspices as would afford hope of success; it would be one of the happiest days of my life, for the hopes of the enslaved millions of our country would rise with

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the elevation of that great and good man to that post of responsibility and power.
There should have been principle enough in the freemen of the North to have adopted the platform and candidate of the Radical Abolition party. There should have been sense enough in Northern men, to have seen that the very best issue and the most appropriate issue, to be made at the coming Presidential Election—in view of the manifest determina-tion of the South to reduce the whole country to the condition of abject servility to the Slave-power—was, whether slavery should be or cease to be. This issue the Radical Abolition party would make, could it have its way, and it were well for them to put forth their address, and to disseminate their tracts and papers, and name in Convention the men whom they believed would carry out their principles and support their platform. All these things tend to enlighten and educate the people. But when we come to the ballot-box, in the present state of affairs and confess that we have no hope of our own candidate, 1t becomes a question of political ethics which deserves a candid and honest solution, whether we honor our principles any more by voting for a hopeless case, than by remaining at home? And further, whether the effect of a small and insignificant vote does not really retard our cause? And whether we ought not to meet Slavery on the only issue which is really made with it, at the present election, viz: Shall Slavery become national, by its extension into the territories of the United States?
The design of scattering addresses, platform documents, &c., is very different from the design of voting. The former will do some good, if they do not enlighten and carry all before them; a vote has in view the single end of electing a man to office. When we confess the utter hopelessness of our candidate, we can be under no obligation to vote, at all. It is no privilege to vote, without the hope of choosing, for that is the sole object of a vote. The choice of our rulers is a great and glorious privilege; but to vote is no privilege unless there be some hope of choosing. The moral effect of a small vote, supposing it to have any moral effect, must be bad. And the influence of withholding our votes from the candidate who represents, at least the non-extension of Slavery, when they can not profitably be serviceable to our more advanced and more consistent position and candidate, seems to me must be prejudicial, on the whole to the Anti-Slavery cause. I shall therefore, most conscientiously and cheerfully, join you in voting for Col. Fremont, and wait our time for a higher platform and a better man.
AUBURN.

PLSr: FDP, 5 September 1856,

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Creator

Auburn

Date

1856-09-05

Publisher

Yale University Press 2018

Type

Letters

Publication Status

Published