Frederick Douglass Autograph Letter Signed.

DOUGLASS, Frederick.

Item Number: 129500

Rare autograph letter signed by and entirely in the hand of American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. One page, the letter reads, “Washington D.C. August 29. 1879 W.H. Johnson Esg, Dear Sir: I am obliged by your favor of the 27th. I am soon to prepare a paper on the Exodus to be read at the Social Science Congress to be held at Saratoga N.Y. 9th Sept. It will contain my present thoughts on that subject. Meanwhile I will send you a series of revelations written by me which give you in some measure what have been my views upon the subject. I am glad you do me the justice to believe me still faithful to the cause of my people. Very truly yours- Frederick Douglass.” The recipient, William Henry Johnson was an African-American abolitionist, statesman and journalist. He was a delegate to the National Convention in 1864 and drew up the constitution of the New York State Equal Rights Committee of which he was elected chairman in 1866. He drafted several other important bills that abolished and amended discriminating laws and constitutional clauses throughout the late 1800s including the Civil Rights bill in 1873, which then became law, and Bill No. 492 of the Laws of 1900 which repealed all laws on the statute books prohibiting the free and equal accommodation of children of African descent in the public schools of New York. He contributed columns to Douglass’ first abolitionist newspaper, The North Star, as well as several other periodicals including the Christian Reader, The Freeman, and the State Republican (Autobiography of Dr. William Henry Johnson, 17-20). In the present letter, Douglass refers to his views on the Exodus movement of 1879, or first general migration of African Americans along the Mississippi River towards Kansas following the Civil War. At a meeting of the American Association for the Promotion of Social Science held in Saratoga, NY, on September 9, 1879, Douglass delivered a speech entitled “The Negro Exodus from the Gulf States” (published in the January 1880 issue of Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly). In the speech, Douglass pointed out that the North required skilled labor for its machines, and the South, unskilled for its farms; he argued that unskilled Blacks moving from the poverty and persecution of the former Confederacy to Kansas and other states in the North were leaving behind a certain benefit for an uncertain one, bringing ruin to both the migrants and the nation as a whole. Leaving the South, Douglass continued, also allowed the government to shirk its duty to protect all its citizens wherever they live. At the same time that Douglass was writing, other African American leaders with opposing views, such as John Mercer Langston, argued that the migration of Blacks to the North was no less justified than that of other migrants forced to leave their untenable circumstances to seek a better life. Some attending to Douglass’s remarks, aligning with Langston or the migrants themselves, might have doubted whether Douglass was agitating more for the welfare of his country than his African American compatriots, which sentiment might have prompted the closing remark in Douglass’s letter. In near fine condition. With the original transmittal envelope which is addressed in another hand. A fascinating piece of American history.

After escaping from slavery in Maryland in 1838, Frederick Douglass became a leader of the national abolitionist movement gaining notoriety for his acute and powerful antislavery orations and writings. Douglass wrote several bestselling autobiographies which became instrumental in promoting the cause for abolition. A firm believer in the equality of all peoples, Douglass also actively supported women's suffrage and became the first African American to be nominated for Vice President of the United States running on the Equal Rights Party ticket.