LETTER FROM JOHN I. GAINES.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: DEAR SIR:—I have
just arisen from a perusal of the able and
gentlemanly letter of J. M. WhitfieldWhitfield, James Monroe

James Monroe Whitfield (1822-71), barber and poet, was born in New Hampshire. During the winter of 1838-39, the Young Men's Union Society of Cleveland appointed Whitfield to deliver an address on the subject of emigration. Thus, as a youth of sixteen, Whitfield urged that blacks establish separate settlements in the United States or on its borders. By the mid-1850s he had become a major spokesman for black emigration. After he moved to Buffalo, New York, in 1841, Whitfield worked as a barber and wrote poetry. Several of his poems had already been published in the North Star when Douglass visited Whitfield in Buffalo in late June 1850. Recounting their visit, Douglass lamented, “That talents so commanding, gifts so rare, poetic powers so distinguished, should be tied to the handle of a razor and buried in the precincts of a barber‘s shop, and that he who possesses them should be consigned, by the malignant arrangements of society, to occupy a position so menial, is painfully disheartening." A delegate to the black convention meeting in Rochester in 1853, Whitfield also endorsed and attended the 1854 emigration convention in Cleveland and was commissioned to investigate Central America as a site for prospective black settlements. Convinced that “full and fair equality can be looked for, only through the existence of national organizations of the different races," Whitfield hoped that the emigration of black Americans would contribute to the emergence of a powerful and independent black nation in the American hemisphere. Before leaving Buffalo around 1859, Whitfield published a volume of poetry, America and Other Poems (Buffalo, 1853), which he dedicated to Martin R. Delany. Later poems appeared in the Liberator the San Francisco Pacific Appeal and the San Francisco Elevator. After the Civil War, Whitfield's principal residence seems to have been in San Francisco, though he also lived in Portland, Oregon, and in Idaho. Between 1864 and 1869 he was Masonic Grand Master of California. Joan R. Sherman, “James Monroe Whitfield, Poet and Emigrationist: A Voice of Protest and Despair," JNH 57: 169-76 (April 1972); Miller, Search for a Black Nationality 137-40; Delany, Condition of the Colored People 132; J. M. Whitfield to Editor, 15 November 1853, in FDP 25 November 1853; ASB 24 August 1850 , the
colored poet, on the emigration of the col
ored people out of the United States, to
some point on the Western Hemisphere.

I was familiar with the argument, or the
bewitching manner in which he has clothed
and produced it to the world would have se
duced me. His letter contains a mischievous
error, and one, which if not corrected, will
do much harm.

He says: "That colored men can never be
fully and fairly respected, in this country, or
any other, until they are able to show in
some part of the world, men of their own
race occupying a primary and independent
position, instead of a secondary and inferior
one, as is now the case everywhere." We
have shown that, sir, and in a degree quite as
flattering as any nation has yet shown, rising
from barbarism to civilization. The repub
lic of Liberia, in 1847, declared her inde
pendence, and it has been acknowledged by
both England and France. And now the
representative, judicial, and executive de
partments of her government are under the
exclusive control of colored men.

Hayti is another Negro nation where the
experiment of self-government has been
fully and farily tried. The present Emper
or of Hayti, Faustin Soulouque, is a native
of the island without a cross in his veins.—He is a man of fine abilities and of unques
tionable courage. He is a gentleman, and
has all the polish of Parisian civilization—And so strongly imbued was he with the spir
it of individuality—the true mark of great
ness—that he absolved himself from the Pope,
retained the faith of his fathers, and now is
himself the head of both church and State.

Go to Port au Prince and see the black
Emperor. He has a black Cabinet and Sen
ators; black judges and generals; and a
lifeguard of one hundred men.

He has ministers and agents at the Courts
of St. James, St. Petersburgh, Paris and Vi
enna, and keeps a standing army of twenty
thousand men. And they are as well clothed,
and paid, and drilled, as the best French
troops. A gentleman of fine literary attain
ments, who spent much time in Port au
Prince, writes thus in regard to the Haytians:
"From all that I had known of them, of
their almost constant sanguinary conflicts, I
had not supposed that any portion of them
were as far advanced in civilization as I found
some of them to be. Those who transact
the commercial and mercantile business of
the city, have an air of intelligence quite
similar to the same class in our own cities—Their style of dress is so remarkably neat
and tasteful, that it attracts your attention
at once." Speaking of the refinement of
the ladies, he adds: "I have never seen in
any city in the Union, ladies more cultivated
and of more accomplished manners than
some I have seen in Port au Prince."

What benefit is this to us? Has it abated
one jot of prejudice? Has it removed one
unholy law? Has it opened one school or
college? Has it wedged one iron door and
allowed a poor colored boy to be educated
in the mechanical arts? If so, when and
where? The truth is, as there is no use
disguising it, a Negro Republic, on the coast
of Africa, the Caribbee Islands, or South
America, will never induce the haughty Sax
on to respect us at home, unless it be a pow
er physically as strong as Russia, and moral
ly as England or France. And to hope for
such in our present dejected, scattered, and
objected condition, seems like hoping against
fate.

The prejudice manifested towards the col
ored people in this country, is not the crea
ture of a day, or a year, but of centuries,
and is interwoven in the whole frame work
of society. The child draws it from its
mother's breast, and among the first lessons
he learns at school, is to despise his colored
brother.

The Rochester Convention has presented
to the world the only feasible plan to rid the
country of the evil, and just in the propor
tion as we adopt it, just in that same propor
tion will we rise in the scale of respectability.
The plan is simply this, to develop our mor
al and intellectual faculties, and by industry
and economy, acquire capital to place our
selves in such a "primary and independent
position" as to compel our enemies to re
spect us. There is nothing mysterious in
this. It is an affair of every day life, as seen
in all its phases, from the palace of the noble,

to the log hut of the peasant. There is a
mutual dependence existing between the
banker and merchant; the merchant and
mechanic; and one could not do without the
other. What would be the use of a bank, if
no one borrowed money; of a mechanic, if
no one built a house; of a farmer, if no one
purchased the products of his labor? Mutu
al dependence is the balance wheel that
holds society together. It performs the same
work in the moral world, that cohesive at
traction does in the physical. Without the
former, men would prey upon each other as
wild beasts; without the latter, the heavens
would be a mass of confusion, instead of or
der and harmony, as is seen everywhere.

"God, in the nature of each being, founds

Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds;

But as he fram'd a whole, the whole to bless,

On mutual wants, built on mutual happiness;

So from the first eternal order ran,

And creature link'd to creature, man to man."

The Rochester Convention, in recommend
ing those measures, is just as superior to the
forthcoming Cleveland Convention, as light
is to darkness, truth to error—as a wise and
eminently practical policy, is to a weak and
misguided one. The object of the Cleve
land Convention will be to destroy the influ
ence of those who are trying to stable the
minds of our people. Let those assume the
responsibility who will, but it should not be
mine for all the wealth of India. And our
enemies will find great cause of rejoicing—Suppose you had a man in your office you
wished to get rid of, how would you do it?—You would tell him that after a certain day
his services would not be needed. He re
plies: "I have as good right here as you,
and will not go." You curtail him in his
rights and privileges, and draw the line as
tight as possible without starving him to
death. He grows weary and gives many in
dications. You draw the line a little tight
er, and finally he resolves to quit. The white
people wish our removal; and Daniel Web
ster declared in the Senate of the United
States, he was willing that the proceeds of
the public lands, amounting to millions of
dollars, should be appropriated to remove us
any where beyond the jurisdiction of the
United States. And the sentiment has been
uttered time and again by Senators, from
the days of George Washington, down to that
of Franklin Pierce. We tell these arrogant
meddlers that we are Americans by birth;
that birth, under our mangna charter, the
Declartion of American Independence,
gives citizenship; That we have "planted
our tree on American soil, and intend to re
pose under the shades thereof." They have
grown mad, and have not only taken from
us the right of franchise, but made it a
crime to give us water when thirsty, and
bread when hungry. Yet we remain, trust
ing in God, and truth, and justice, reeling
though we be, under the lash of the tyrant.

A colored Convention is holden in Cleve
land, and infuses in the enemy's camp new
life and vigor; and now the cry is, "Lay on,
McDuff, lay on." If gentlemen wish to
emigrate, why not do it, and allow those of
their bretheren who choose, to remain at home
in peace. Let fifty of them establish them
selves in Central America, and if they do
well, and the climate and government are
congenial to the development of the race, it
will do more for emigration that one hun
dred and one tory conventions. "I also con
sider it a part of his" (colored people)
"manifest destiny" "to posess all the tropi
cal regions of this continent with the adja
cent islands." Fudge!! Why our "mani
fest destiny?" Why not in the polar regions?

Charles Rumlin, Esq., in writings on this
subject, found reason in the fact, that slaves
had decreased in Virginia and Maryland, and
increased in Mississippi and Arkansas, when
it was a well known fact that Western slave
holders had sent their slaves thither to be
sold.

Our destiny is here, where God has placed
us. We thrive just as well as our white
neighbors; and if they have outstripped us
in population during the last half century,
it is owning to foreign migration and not nat
ural causes. Let a few facts be submitted:
"With their uniform ratio of increase con
tinued," (slaves ) which, it will be remember
ed, is three per cent. per annum, in 50 years,
from 1850, the slave population of the Uni
ted States will number 12,000,000 with an
annual increase of 360,000. In 100 years
hence, they will have increased to 44,500,000.
And in 150 years, their numbers will be
165,000,000, and the yearly increase, 7,000,000."

Mr. WhitfieldWhitfield, James Monroe

James Monroe Whitfield (1822-71), barber and poet, was born in New Hampshire. During the winter of 1838-39, the Young Men's Union Society of Cleveland appointed Whitfield to deliver an address on the subject of emigration. Thus, as a youth of sixteen, Whitfield urged that blacks establish separate settlements in the United States or on its borders. By the mid-1850s he had become a major spokesman for black emigration. After he moved to Buffalo, New York, in 1841, Whitfield worked as a barber and wrote poetry. Several of his poems had already been published in the North Star when Douglass visited Whitfield in Buffalo in late June 1850. Recounting their visit, Douglass lamented, “That talents so commanding, gifts so rare, poetic powers so distinguished, should be tied to the handle of a razor and buried in the precincts of a barber‘s shop, and that he who possesses them should be consigned, by the malignant arrangements of society, to occupy a position so menial, is painfully disheartening." A delegate to the black convention meeting in Rochester in 1853, Whitfield also endorsed and attended the 1854 emigration convention in Cleveland and was commissioned to investigate Central America as a site for prospective black settlements. Convinced that “full and fair equality can be looked for, only through the existence of national organizations of the different races," Whitfield hoped that the emigration of black Americans would contribute to the emergence of a powerful and independent black nation in the American hemisphere. Before leaving Buffalo around 1859, Whitfield published a volume of poetry, America and Other Poems (Buffalo, 1853), which he dedicated to Martin R. Delany. Later poems appeared in the Liberator the San Francisco Pacific Appeal and the San Francisco Elevator. After the Civil War, Whitfield's principal residence seems to have been in San Francisco, though he also lived in Portland, Oregon, and in Idaho. Between 1864 and 1869 he was Masonic Grand Master of California. Joan R. Sherman, “James Monroe Whitfield, Poet and Emigrationist: A Voice of Protest and Despair," JNH 57: 169-76 (April 1972); Miller, Search for a Black Nationality 137-40; Delany, Condition of the Colored People 132; J. M. Whitfield to Editor, 15 November 1853, in FDP 25 November 1853; ASB 24 August 1850 has taken great care indeed
to find our "manifest destiny."

By all the love we have for human liberty,
and the spread of universal justice—by all
the tears we have shed over the graves of
our fathers—by all that is dear on earth or
sacred in heaven, let us swear never to de
sert our fatherland, while a brother or a sis
ter is in bonds.

O, what a work there is before us!! If we
have hearts, let us bid them move; if we
have courage, let us speak; if we have in
fluence, let us exert it; and if we have tal
ents, let us consecrate them, to open the
prison doors of the blind and to let the oppressed go free.

Respectfully yours,

JOHN I. GAINES.