Following The North Star: Douglass's Return Home
Frederick Douglass’s North Star Newspaper.
Douglass left Liverpool on April 4th, and after another heavily publicized controversy with the Cunard line ships, arrived in Boston on April 20.[148] Douglass’s celebrity overseas had been closely monitored back home (too closely, at times, for Douglass’s liking), and his return was celebrated with numerous receptions, gatherings and parties. Douglass himself was glad to be back; he wrote to a friend in Britain a little more than a week after his return, “I am at home—in the warm bosom of my family, caressed and administered to, by the beloved ones of my heart. It is good to be here—Thanks be to God.”[149] But the joy of seeing his family and old friends did not distract him from his role as critic and revealer of American hypocrisy. In fact, Douglass internalized something of the powerful exilic perspective, a sort of exaggerated version of Du Bois’s “second sight” that allowed him to accept his Americanism without relinquishing his critical stance. Thus, Douglass devoted his first major speech after his return, at the annual American Anti-Slavery Society Convention on May 11, 1847, to the topic of “the Right and Duty of invoking English aid and English sympathy for the overthrow of American slavery.” He reminded the large audience there that his return to the United States was not a sign of his love for the nation, claiming, “I have no patriotism. I have no country.” (SOURCE) [150]
Garrison, as president of the AASS, also spoke at the Convention. If he had previously considered Douglass’s celebrity a European phenomenon, he was now forced to appreciate it as a permanent aspect of Douglass’s American personality. Indeed, during Garrison’s preliminary remarks, before he introduced Douglass, the large crowd interrupted with rousing chants of the black orator’s name.[151] Aggravating this inherent tension between teacher and rapidly developing student were Douglass’s editorial ambitions. Earlier in the year, Douglass’s British admirers had offered him a testimonial fund, but Douglass refused, asking instead for the money to start his own antislavery weekly back home. Douglass returned to the United States with $500 toward that end and with promises of support from many of his British hosts.
The AASS leadership was distressed when they learned of Douglass’s plans; they worried that the burden of editing a newspaper would compromise Douglass’s immense talents as an antislavery lecturer (though, as Douglass pointed out, no one seemed to mind that Garrison himself juggled the responsibilities of orator and editor). Garrison argued that the market for antislavery journals was already strained, so that Douglass’s efforts would only further splinter the small pool of readers. He implored Douglass to forgo the editorial temptation, reminding him that “the land is full of the wrecks of such experiments.”[152] Garrison did have history to support his arguments; antislavery publications were notoriously unprofitable, and, at the time, there was not a single “Negro newspaper” in publication that had lasted for more than five years.[153] Even Douglass realized the ambition, almost the arrogance, of his proposed project. As he wrote in 1855, with a humility tempered by the knowledge of his ultimate success, “I can easily pardon those who have denounced me as ambitious and presumptuous, in view of my persistence in this enterprise. I was but nine years from slavery. In point of mental experience, I was but nine years old.”[154] Douglass accurately characterized the nature of the objections to his plan; besides considerations of financial feasibility, the Garrisonians had difficulty recognizing Douglass’s maturity, and still considered him as something of a precocious child.[155]
For the time being, though, their arguments and exhortations were effective and Douglass put aside his ambitions. Still smarting from the stifling supervision of Webb and Chapman, Douglass was careful to present the decision as entirely his own, writing in The Liberator, “I have acted independently, and wholly on my own responsibility.”[156] In compensation, the AASS offered Douglass a chance to write regularly for the official publication of the Society, the National Anti-Slavery Standard. They also arranged for Douglass to accompany Garrison on another western tour. The time alone with his mentor, they hoped, would reestablish Douglass’s position in the AASS family as a willing disciple (and child) of “Father Garrison.”[157] Passing through Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, New Lyme, Oberlin, and Cleveland, the two men spoke before large crowds that exhibited varying degrees of sympathy toward the cause.[158] Unfortunately, the stress of traveling nearly every day in a horse-drawn wagon and speaking for long hours in damp weather proved too much for Garrison to bear. He suffered a physical breakdown in Cleveland, and though Douglass wished to stay at his bedside, Garrison urged him to continue on with the tour.[159] The scene was set for a misunderstanding between the two men that would ultimately expose the inherent tension in their relationship. Garrison, from his sick-bed, wrote to his wife expressing his disappointment that Douglass did not seem concerned with his health, ignoring a letter from an abolitionist colleague informing Garrison that Douglass was “very much trouble[d]” about his condition.” (SOURCE) [160] In some sense, the conflict was “inevitable,” based on the divergent personalities of the two men.[161] But the rift was no doubt accelerated by Douglass’s announcement, in late September, that he had changed his mind about publishing a newspaper. Dismayed by the discrimination he had encountered on the tour, and reminded of the violent tenacity of American prejudice, Douglass decided that an intelligent and articulate black newspaper would be “a telling fact against the American doctrine of natural inferiority, and the inveterate prejudice which so universally prevails in this country against the colored race.”[162] Garrison, on the other hand, saw the about-face as an example of Douglass’s inability to listen to the advice of those better informed and more experienced than he. Garrison complained to his wife, “[Douglass] never opened to me his lips on the subject nor asked my advice….His conduct…has been impulsive, inconsiderate, and highly inconsistent with his decision in Boston.” (SOURCE)Most members of Garrison’s circle agreed.[163]
Douglass remained undeterred, though he was saddened and disappointed by the conduct of his friends. The first issue of his paper, The North Star, was published on December 3, 1847, in Rochester, NY. From his western tours, Douglass knew the bustling city of 30,000 as a place rich in antislavery sentiment; he was on friendly terms with many of its more prominent antislavery citizens. Additionally, Rochester represented a geographic region not in direct competition with Garrison’s The Liberator or the NASS.[164] The move was another version of a self-imposed exile, granting Douglass a measure of independence and allowing him to develop the full complexity of his identity.[165] It is important to note, however, that as in Britain, Douglass’s movement toward independence did not signify a treacherous apostasy or an immediate rejection of Garrisonian abolitionism. Douglass’s major ideological departure from Garrisonian principles would not come until 1851, with his endorsement of the Liberty Party and his acceptance of the antislavery Constitution. That shift was brought about by his interaction with New York political abolitionists and by the research and careful analysis required of an editor.[166] The potential for an ideological migration was thus only implicit in the act of physical migration. In moving to Rochester, Douglass was able to escape from his “slavish adoration” of Garrison and pursue authentic self-exploration and self-expression.[167]
Continuing the personal development initiated in Britain, Douglass’s work on The North Star allowed him to embrace both his white and black selves. Editorializing, as opposed to lecturing, was considered by most abolitionists a white responsibility, and by taking command of the paper, Douglass could demonstrate the extent to which his “whiteness,” recognized in Britain, could serve the cause of his black brethren.[168] Confirming his double identity was his collaboration and close friendship with Gerrit Smith, the white New York philanthropist and political abolitionist. Unlike the Garrisonians, Smith treated Douglass with a trust and a genuine respect that validated Douglass’s whiteness. At the same time, Smith’s capacity to understand the challenges faced by black abolitionists encouraged Douglass to explore both components of his double identity. In fact, James McCune Smith, a prominent black abolitionist and physician educated in Glasgow, wrote of Douglass, “only since his Editorial career has he seen [sic] to become a colored man! I have read his paper very carefully and find phrase after phrase develop itself as regularly as in one newly born among us.”[169]
Douglass’s ties to the black community, and especially to the free black community, were also strengthened through his relationship with Martin Delany. “Black as jet, and a fine fellow of great energy and spirit,” (SOURCE) Delany was Douglass’s editorial partner for much of the paper’s first two years.[170] An outspoken and articulate advocate of black nationalism, Delany ultimately championed emigration from the United States as the only solution to the problem of slavery. As Robert Levine argues, his collaboration with Douglass was very much based on their mutual concern with free-black elevation. Though they never reached a consensus on the precise means of uplift, both men agreed that The North Star could prove that blacks could thrive independently as articulate, responsible, and financially profitable advocates of their own rights.[171] Thus, Douglass’s eloquence, intelligence and independence no longer distanced him from his black brethren. From his earlier role as the suffering slave, Douglass had moved to the position of a positive role model; as an editor, he could determine the meaning of his own symbolism. He had been a representative. Now he could become a leader.
By 1851, with Douglass’s dramatic embrace of political antislavery at the annual AASS convention, the break with Garrison was complete. Earlier in the year, with the financial support of Gerrit Smith, The North Star merged with the smaller Liberal Party Paper to become Frederick Douglass’s Paper. By the title alone we can see the extent to which Douglass’s identity was wrapped up in his editorial duties; when asked in 1851 how he preferred to be addressed, he responded, “Mr. Editor.”[172] Of course, many assumed that the title represented Douglass’s arrogance and self-importance, but these same people probably did not blink to call themselves Garrisonians.[173] There was, however, an element of truth in these disparaging remarks. In Britain, Douglass developed a new confidence in his identity and began to understand the power of celebrity, of his own name, to impress and command. Britain had aggravated the contradictory nature of Douglass’s representative identity, and thus had exposed the tensions of Douglass’s doubleness. But as he began to appreciate the unity of his parts, and came closer to resolving his internal contradictions, he could conceive of that doubleness as an asset, and even as a privilege.
In anticipation of the first issue of Frederick Douglass’s Paper, Douglass directed Gerrit Smith, “The paper must be clean, white and strong. The ink pure, black, and glossy.” (SOURCE) [174] This vision in black and white was an articulation of his own maturing mulatto self, and of his interracial collaboration with Delany and Smith (and later with Julia Griffiths). In a sense, it was also his vision of the promise of a redeemed and consistent America. For if Douglass could unite in the vastness of his person the identities of slave and freeman, then so too could America embrace both her black and white inhabitants. The North Star—and Douglass himself — would become both the instrument and the embodiment of that vision. And if Douglass never saw that vision fully realized, and never fully resolved the tension inherent in his person, he never ceased moving toward those goals. His twenty months in Britain, a period of struggle, success, and growth, was one stop in that journey, a journey ennobled not merely by the destination, but by the independence inherent in the movement itself.
Footnotes
[148] On March 4th Douglass ordered a return ticket on the Cambria , and was told that he would not be restricted to any part of the ship as he had been in his previous trip. But when Douglass’s attempted to board the ship in the beginning of April, he was told that his place had been given to a white passenger, and that he would not be able to eat his meals or mix socially with the first-class passengers. Douglass once again complied, but wrote several angry letters to British publications, and caused such a public uproar, that eventually he received a public apology from the owner of the ships, Mr. Cunard. Foner, Life and Writings, I:233 (April 3, 1847) (SOURCE); Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 54.
[149] Foner, Life and Writings, V:52 (April 29, 1847); Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 57; Fulkerson, “Exile as Emergence,” 82.
[150]Blassingame, Frederick Douglass Papers, II:60 (May 11, 1847) (SOURCE)1088.htm.
[151] McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 148.
[152] Cited in Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 58; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 147 .
[153] Foner, Frederick Douglass, 77. According to Benjamin Quarles, there were 17 “Negro newspapers” published before the Civil War, and without exception, all “operated at a loss.” Four were in existence when Douglass decided to add his own to the list in 1847. The reasons for their unprofitability were varied. Chiefly, many of the poor black subscribers were unable to pay the subscription fees they pledged, and editors rarely had any backup capital. See Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 86-89.
[154] Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, 305.
[155] Friedman, Gregarious Saints, 189-190.
[156] Cited in Robert Levine, Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass and the Politics of Representative Identity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 18.
[157] Friedman, Gregarious Saints, 49. Friedman discusses the extent to which Garrison did indeed consider his abolitionist circle as a type of family, and suggests that it was the “loyalty, allegiance, and intense emotional warmth” toward Garrison that was the “fundamental source of Clique cohesiveness.”
[158] Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 59-67. New Lyme was an overwhelming success, while the crowd at Harrisburg turned rowdy, pelting Garrison and Douglass with stones and rotten eggs.
[159] Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 68.
[160] Merrill, Letters of Garrison, III:532 (October 20, 1847) (SOURCE); Foner, Frederick Douglass, 81; Tyrone Tillery, “The Inevitability of the Douglass-Garrison Conflict,” Phylon 37:2 (June 76): 143.
[161] Several scholars have classified this difference as one between Garrison’s dedication to radicalism and resilient absolutism versus Douglass’s pragmatism and willingness to compromise. See Tillery, “The Inevitability of the Douglass-Garrison Conflict; Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 74-75.
[162] Cited in Foner, Frederick Douglass, 76. See also “Our Paper and its Prospects,” from the first issue of The North Star, reprinted in Foner, Life and Writings, I:280 (SOURCE).
[163] Merrill, Letters of Garrison, III:533 (October 20, 1847) (SOURCE). The relationship between Garrison and Douglass deteriorated, especially after Douglass’s defection to political antislavery. By 1857, Garrison would call Douglass “one of the malignant enemies of mine” and in a sad measure of how much had changed, refused to go to England in 1860 because he knew that Douglass was already there. The two probably did not speak to each other after 1851. Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 78.
[164] Foner, Frederick Douglass, 83, Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 71.
[165] Stepto, Storytelling, 356. As with his original exile, the casualty in his departure was Anna, forced to move once again to a strange and alien place. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 154.
[166] Gregory Garvey, “Frederick Douglass’s Change of Opinion on the U.S. Constitution: Abolitionism and the ‘Elements of Moral Power’,” American Transcendental Quarterly 9:3 (September 1995), 234-236. In My Bondage and my Freedom Douglass asserted that “But for the responsibility of conducting a public journal, and the necessity imposed upon me of meeting opposite views from abolitionists in this state, I should in all probability have remained as firm in my disunion views as any other disciple of William Lloyd Garrison (308).”
[167] Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, 308.
[168] Friedman, Gregarious Saints, 188; Pease and Pease, “Antislavery Ambivalence,” 686.
[169] Cited in Foner, Frederick Douglass, 94. Friedman, Gregarious Saints, 193.
[170] Merrill, Letters of Garrison, III:510 (August 16, 1847) (SOURCE). It seems likely that Douglass secretly recruited Delany for his paper when they met during his Western tour, without Garrison’s knowledge. The two men decided that Delany should concentrate on expanding the paper’s reader base, traveling throughout the western country and sending back accounts of his experiences. Delany remained an editor until June 1849. In his important book, Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass and the Politics of Representative Identity, Robert Levine attempts to demonstrate the importance of Delany’s participation, “obscured by Douglass and by biographers sympathetic to Douglass.” Levine, Martin Delany, 20. It is interesting however, to note that after his falling out with Garrison, Douglass’s relationships with other black abolitionists, like Robert Purvis, Charles Remond, and William Wells Brown, significantly deteriorated. A paper whose purpose was to unify American blacks around the image of their own self-sufficiency sadly failed to unite the black abolitionist community itself. Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 77.
[171] For all his expectations, Douglass was soon disappointed by the response of the black population to The North Star. By May 1848 the newspaper had five times as many white subscribers as black. Douglass attributed their “negative interest” “to the long night of ignorance which has overshadowed and subdued their spirit.” Cited in Foner, Frederick Douglass, 86.
[172] McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 150.
[173] Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 76. More problematic was the charge that Douglass was swayed by Smith’s financial support to cater to his political demands. However, an examination of the correspondence between Smith and Douglass reveals that their relationship was based more on a mutual appreciation than on financial patronage (though Smith did heavily finance the paper). McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 151.
[174] Foner, Life and Writings, V:186 (June 4, 1851) (SOURCE).