Communipaw [James McCune Smith] to Frederick Douglass, March 19, 1859

FROM OUR NEW YORK CORRESPONDENT.

MR. EDITOR:—Your paper has failed to reach us New Yorkers to-day, and in revenge I sit down to inflict a letter upon you. Indeed, it is a necessity rather than a choice, for I find that writing "agrees with me;" and could not tell why I felt so dull on this blustering Saturday night, until I remembered that my tenure of the office editorial had ceased last week, and that the ideas which doubtless gathered up in my brain for next week's paper, were lolling and stretching themselves in magnificent indolence on the sofas and lounges of my upper story, obstructing by their inertia the genial flow of thought with which the latter part of the week usually finds me blessed. It is an old habit, dating back to my apprenticeship to the black-smithing business, to hail Saturday night for its pleasant, winding up reveries. It was pay-night, and those early earnings were the heartiest money pride I ever felt. It was wash night, and the grime and honest sweat of anvil and bellows and forge, gave place to a glorious ablution. It was Latin or Greek-Grammar night with on whole day in prospect for hard study, (except intervals at church service,) when Caesar, or Virgil, or Buttman, steadied, with their rugged and knotty hardships, the wild dreams of my boy ambition. It was, moreover, the night before Sunday evening church-time, when there shone in a corner of old St. Philips, what I fear to be was holier than service or sermon, brighter than the lamps within or the starts above the church—now, I am credibly informed a very worthy grand-mother with six immediate and twenty secondary descendants in the pines of Georgia; I came very near inflicting personal violence on a gentleman from that region, who a year ago spake of her as "old Mrs. —."

There has been some stir among us New Yorkers in the current week. On the first day, at even, Brother Garnet spoke with his wonted brilliancy to an overflowing congregation.

Monday night a public festival, termed an "Oratorian," was given in honor of Dr. M. R. Delany, author of "Blake, or the Huts of America." What was mean by "Oratorian," I cannot tell, the word being neither Hebrew, Greek nor Latin—but have not we blacks as good a right as the whites to invent words? The affair consisted of music, speeches, readings and a recitation, and passed off very well. On Wednesday night, the African Civilization Society held a meeting in the basement of Shiloh Church; the meeting was crowded, the room very warm, and afforded a striking foretaste of the glories of an African climate. The Hon. Mr. Johnson of Liberia made a very clever speech, showing the progress of Christianity and Civilization in the region round about Monrovia. Mr. Johnson excels in that most unusual gift, the power of statement. He must be formidable at the bar; it would require great quickness, acuteness, and equal lucidity in statement in the opposite counsel who might get up to reply to him. He has also a rough sincerity of manner which is very impressive, and reminded me of the criticism made by an old Scotch Judge, on the manner of Attorney General, afterwards Lord Cockburn, that he would lee wi' such an air, "that ye dare na believe but he was telling the truth."

Mr. Johnson claimed for Liberia its entire independence of the Colonization Society, and its hateful principles of expatriation; he did not expect by these meetings to urge upon his colored brethren in these States to go to Africa; all he wanted was, that as Liberians were doing their best to sustain the negro's claim to equal humanity, and as they earnestly strive to civilize native Africans, and as the colored people of the United States were laboring for the first of these objects, the should, therefore, give aid and assistance and countenance to their brethren in Liberia who were their co-laborers as well as their brethren.

This is, undoubtedly, a plausible statement of the case; the fallacy lies deeply rooted in the midst of the institutions and the philosophy which surround us, and which may be summed

up in the modern reading of "preach the gospel to all the world," leaving out Jerusalem. Whereas the Book teaches us, to "preach the gospel to all the world, beginning at Jerusalem."

Yet these meetings are not without one benefit; the terms "negro" and "black man," have been lions in the pathway of our progress. We are tender footed in regard to them. We wince under them. At these meetings, a yellow man or a black man, can say "black" and "negro," without exciting frown or heartburn. They aid in promoting that free speech, which is a necessary preliminary to real progress.

George T. Downing has been defeated in his struggle for Equal School Rights in Rhode Island. It was a dearly bought victory on the part of his opponents. It is something new in American History that a member of the Legislature of a sovereign State should occupy two hours of a session in vilifying and calumniating the character of a black reformer. It is something new also, in these times, for a Democratic paper to speak of the bill, which was prepared on this question, in the following terms:

"A large majority of the members seemed to be and undoubtedly were in favor of its passage. Indeed, looking upon the House as composed of honest, intelligent men, not as mere tricksters, and easy dupes of tricksters, its passage was certain; for nearly two-thirds of all the members had expressed their wish to vote for a measure of this character. But in an unfortunate hour of the petitioners, the whole matter was a second time consigned to a committee, and the poor colored men were insultingly led to the door, and told to go out.

"We have given our readers a history of the movement which resulted in the defeat of the bill referred to. Mr. Flagg screwed his courage up to the sticking point, and ventured to assail, not the bill itself, not the petitioners, but a gentleman who had appeared before the committee as a friend of the latter. This man who seems to us a head and shoulders above Mr. Flagg in moral integrity and intellectual ability, though 'nothing but a negro' in color, was assailed in the most ungentlemanly and

venomous language, until every decent man in the House felt like crying shame upon the retailer of such contemptible Billingsgate."—Providence Daily Post.

I heartily return thanks to our brother Downing for his noble, his glorious labors on this great question. I know his character too well to believe that he is disheartened at this temporary defeat—or, as I prefer to call it, this brave winning of laurels from the enemy. It is something in this nineteenth century, and under the reign of James Buchanan, the chrystalized negro hater, for a black man to wring from the Democratic Press the admission that a "negro" is a gentleman—"head and shoulders taller in intellectual ability and moral worth" than a white legislator. If the feeling of envy could possess my soul, it would be excited by the position occupied by Mr. Downing and his co-laborers.

We are looking forward to the May meetings with great interest, in the expectation of your Eulogy on the late Judge Jay.

Yours,

COMMUNIPAW.

NEW YORK, March 19, 1859.

P.S. Did you know that Ethiop is an Irishman? He is, sure, for he was born on St. Patrick's day.