(I couldn’t tell if this one posted correctly, ROK)
An Ambitious Undertaking
“In the year 1843, the movement had so far progressed that a great undertaking was announced,” Washington wrote. “It was proposed to hold one hundred conventions under the auspices of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in such states as New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Mr. Douglass was selected as one of the agents to assist in the work. This was regarded as an ambitious scheme on the part of Mr. Garrison, and attracted a great deal of public attention. Among the speakers associated with Mr. Douglass in this tour were George Bradburn, John A. Collins, James Monroe, Sidney Howard Gay, and Charles Lenox Remond, the last-named a colored man of unusual eloquence. Mr. Douglass felt very proud, as well he might, of being given so prominent a part in this important enterprise, and of being associated with men of such distinction. The wisdom of holding these conventions was soon made manifest, when it was discovered how ill-informed were the masses of the people as to the nature of the issue the Abolitionists were seeking to force upon the attention of the country.
“The crusade received rather a chilly reception in the Green Mountain State. Along the Erie Canal, from Albany to Buffalo, it was more than difficult to excite any interest or to make converts. In Syracuse, the home of Rev. Samuel J. May, and where such men as Gerrit Smith, Beriah Green, and William Goodell lived, Douglass and his friends could not obtain a hall, church, or market-place to hold a meeting. Everybody was discouraged and favored ‘shaking the dust from off their feet,’ and going to other parts. But Frederick Douglass did not believe in surrender. He was determined to speak his word for the gospel of Abolition here, even if he must do so under the open sky, as in Connecticut and Massachusetts. In the morning he began in a grove with five people present. So powerful was his appeal that in the afternoon he had an audience of five hundred and in the evening he was tendered the use of an old building that had done service as a Congregational church. In this house the convention was organized and carried on for three days. The seeds of Abolition were so well sown in Syracuse, that thereafter it was always hospitable ground for anti-slavery advocates. Mr. Douglass had a more friendly reception in Rochester, which was to be his future home. Here he found a goodly number of Abolitionists and his words made a lasting impression.[1]
In June 1843, according to Blight, Douglass wrote that a meeting in New Hampshire had been “disgraceful, alarming, divided, united, glorious, and most effective.” Afterward, he went to Lynn to rest before beginning the ambitious “one hundred conventions” tour, which was to take place from July to December. Nearly everywhere the abolitionist speakers went, Liberty Party advocates did everything they could to disrupt their anti-slavery campaign. In Vermont, vicious notices against the speakers were plastered all over Middlebury. Their meeting in Utica, New York, had a low turnout. At first, Douglass traveled alone in Syracuse. But Collins, Kelley, and Remond joined him there for three days, which were marred by Collins diverting the topic from abolition of slavery to abolishing private property. Douglass and Remond countered with heated arguments. Collins and Douglass wrote to the American Anti-Slavery Society board to defend their positions. In the middle of it all, Douglass wrote AASS executive committee member Maria W. Chapman, asking her to send Anna $25 or $30 ($1,001 or $1,201 in 2022), because he had nothing to send her. “He woke every day worrying about how to feed his family as well as how to best use his voice to free his fellow slaves. He struggled mightily to do both,” Blight wrote.[2]
Douglass wrote, “In the growing city of Rochester we had in every way a better reception. Abolitionists of all shades of opinion were broad enough to give the Garrisonians (for such we were) a hearing. Samuel D. Porter and the Avery family, though they belonged to the Gerrit Smith, Myron Holley, and William Goodell school, were not so narrow as to refuse us the use of their church for the convention. They heard our moral suasion arguments, and in a manly way met us in debate. We were opposed to carrying the anti-slavery cause to the ballot-box, and they believed in carrying it there. They looked at slavery as a creature of law; we regarded it as a creature of public opinion. It is surprising how small the difference appears as I look back to it, over the space of forty years; yet at the time of it this difference was immense.
“During our stay at Rochester we were hospitably entertained by Isaac and Amy Post, two people of all-abounding benevolence, the truest and best of Long Island and Elias Hicks Quakers. They were not more amiable than brave, for they never seemed to ask, What will the world say? but walked straight forward in what seemed to them the line of duty, please or offend whomsoever it might. Many a poor fugitive slave found shelter under their roof when such shelter was hard to find elsewhere, and I mention them here in the warmth and fullness of earnest gratitude.”[3]
Douglass was so happy to return to Rochester, Blight wrote, that before he began a speech there August 5, he delighted the gathering by singing an abolition song. After Syracuse and Rochester, Douglass and Remond planned to travel to Buffalo to reach new audiences.[4]
According to Washington, “The next meeting of importance was in Buffalo. The outlook for a convention in this western New York city was so discouraging that Mr. Douglass’[s] associates turned on their heels and left him to ‘do Buffalo alone.’ The place appointed was a dilapidated old room that had once been used as a post office. No one was there at first except a few hack drivers who sauntered in from curiosity. But Mr. Douglass went at them with great earnestness, as if they could settle all the problems that were overburdening his heart. Out of this small and unsympathetic beginning, grew a great convention. Every day for nearly a week, in the old building, he spoke to constantly increasing crowds of people, who were worth talking to, until finally a large Baptist church was thrown open to him. Here the size and character of the audience were flattering. So great was the eagerness to hear him that on Sunday evening he addressed an outdoor meeting of five thousand people in the park.”[5]
Sally Holley, a daughter of the late abolitionist Myron Holley, was a surprising part of the audience in the post office in Buffalo, Holland wrote. Douglass described her as “a young lady, who brought no escort but a little girl, and who was so beautiful as to look, in that rough crowd, like an angel of light.” Douglass didn’t expect to see her again, but she came every day, and he learned who she was and that her father, a founder of the Liberty Party, “had been reduced to earning his living” by delivering milk. Sally later wrote that the first time she ever heard Douglass speak, his “soul poured out with rare pathos and power.”[6]
Douglass and Remond were in Buffalo, Blight wrote, around the time of the thirteenth annual National Colored Convention. Presbyterian Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, a former slave from Maryland, delivered a riveting address advocating that slaves resist their bondage. Douglass spoke out strongly that insurrection was disastrous. The Liberator supported Douglass’s public disagreement over the use of violence, as well as his opposition to a resolution declaring it the delegates’ duty to vote for the Liberty Party. These events marked the beginning of a long-lasting feud between Douglass and Rev. Garnet. Out of seventy-three delegates, Douglass and Remond were the only ones from Massachusetts, out of the ten states present.[7]
[1] Washington, F. Douglass, 78–81.
[2] Blight, F. D. Prophet, 128–29; and U.S. Inflation Calculator for 1843.
[3] Douglass, Autobiographies, 673–74.
[4] Blight, F. D. Prophet, 130.
[5] Washington, F. Douglass, 80.
[6] Holland, F. D. Colored Orator, 93.
[7] Blight, F. D. Prophet, 131.