Communipaw to Frederick Douglass, February 13, 1858

Letter from our New-York Correspondent.

MR EDITOR—So, you have come to "a lively sense" of the fact that Senator, the Honorable William H. Seward—can be mistaken, eh? I think, if a kind Providence has it in store to compress my "weezand," with a hempen cravat, the ugly painfulness of the thing will be greatly mitigated, if you be appointed as the—Jack Ketch! There is a lightness of touch, a soothing, fascinating suavity of manner, a grand make up of "winning ways" about you, when you give a man the "coup," which leads me to believe that you would perform the work to the melancholy delight of the party of the first part. I feel that I should enter the next world filled with delightful reminiscences of my parting with the finest fellow in this.

What has become of that man who wrote from Auburn, the very lively philippic against your humble servant, for calling a certain gentleman BILLY? Why don't he pitch into Senator Hale for calling the same gentleman infinitely worse names?

You seem rather verdant, Mr. Editor, if nothing worse, when you call upon your readers seriously to ponder any rebuke, which Horace Greeley utters against Gov. Seward, for political sin. You should know, if you don't, that such rebuke is a miserable "fetch" by which, when the time comes, to retain authority to "whip in" the poor fools, who have some semblance of conscience left, in political matters.—Seward undoubtedly missed a figure in suffering the nomination of 1856 to fall upon another.—To obtain the nomination of 1860, he will have to sink so deep into the mire of slavocracy, that 'time enough' no one will be able to recognize him ten years from this date, as a man who had ever had any anti-slavery proclivities. He is a man of forecast, undoubtedly, and thus early begins to cry

"Out damned spot!"

But I took up my pen to say "why," for my long silence. Just after I mailed you my last "communipaw," your paper came to hand endorsing Gerrit Smith, who in turn had endorsed Horace Greeley's baleful falsehoods about the free colored people of the free states, and especially of this city. Greeley said "there are more free blacks in the city of New-York, who seek to live by harlotry, rum-selling, &c., than by down right honest labor." Gerrit Smith with this statement before him, writes to Mr. Greeley, "I agree with you in the main." And Frederick

Douglass in a long and bitter article, basing his views on the meagre support which his paper receives from them, coincides to a certain extent with kindred views of Greeley and Gerrit Smith, touching the degraded character of the free blacks. And all this came out at a moment when our brethren in Wisconsin were gallantly contending for equal franchise, when our brethren in California, against untold odds were faithfully battling for the "oath."

My head whirled, in view of this plain defection of men in whom I had been accustomed to look for sympathy and succor, or at least for the truthfulness which wells up from the brotherhood of man. After a patient review of the facts it seemed best to call to account, through you columns, the Hon. Gerrit Smith, and demand from him the FACTS on which he based his endorsement of Greeley: there may be known to him facts which have no reached the ears of those, who, like myself, have spent a life-time in the midst of "our people." But before this purpose could be accomplished, a hand stronger than mine had sealed the lips of Gerrit Smith, at least for the time.

Then came the "panic" that shudder which passed through the nations living to a greater or less extent on the unrequitted toil of God's poor "It was remarked in the money article of the Evening Post, that the Celtic, and I add, negro races did not suffer from this panic) and panic times did not conduce to liveliness in letter writing. Let me here say, however, that although I felt a "grudge against you" for herding with Greeley, &c. I could not but admire, and feel cheered, at the gallant energy with which you kept your banner up, proving the truth of what Fowler said when he announced indomitable energy as one of the elements of your character, craniologically speaking.

In the mean time let me say that I have written you many a letter,—in the quiet recesses of my brain. Once a fortnight at least, I have sat down and thought out a column or so for your paper on some one of the many subjects prominent at the moment—and especially about the "chess congress," another about "John W. Hunter, his x mark," and another about the Panic, another about "Real Estate,"—yes, and another in relation to that most gallant soldier of us all who is faith-bound with them,"—but none of these letters have reached you, and none ever will.

I suppose it is irksomeness of the bad company (Greeley &c.) you have been in, which fully laboring in England and Scotland among her sisters and for "those that are in bonds as leads you to couple my name with that of Byles "misery &c." Don't you know that Byles had

been promoted to an editorship in the Tribune? This happened almost co-incidently with Greeley's wrathful outburst upon the blacks. Byles is frequently in New York and "does the balloon-ing" for the editorial columns of the Tribune. You surely cannot read the paper, or you would detect his 'highfalutin."

Perhaps I should explain: a young man called on a physician for advice for spiritual difficulty, last summer: the physician noticed an enormous development of the muscles of the legs, especially the "calves," and inquired his occupation. "I do the ballooning" said the youth "at Niblo's." "What is that?" "Why, in certain scenes, I lie on my back, and keep kicking up into the air a pair of beautifully variegated india rubber balloons; it makes the muscles in my legs tough as iron, but leads to this weakness in the BACK BONE."

Yours affectionately,

COMMUNIPAW.

New York, Feb. 13th, 1858.