[E.] to Frederick Douglass, [January 28, 1853]

[January 28, 1853]

FRIEND DOUGLASS:—"The fools are not all dead yet." Flunkeyism is still in the ascendent; and so long as thrift follows fawning, so long there will be no scarcity of this commodity, crawling and fawning at the foot-stool of power. When one great flunkey dies of disappointment and chagrin, he is duly honored by that whole fraternity, by gorgeous funeral rites and processions; and flunkey oratory, from puplits and rostrums, Legislative halls and bar-rooms, redolent with rhetorical glorification, is so super-abundant as to be dog cheap. I doubt not that the survivors are stimulated with hope, and exclaim (in heaat, or rather chuckled in the sleeve) as did the British officers at the third assault on Bunker Hill, when pointing their swords at the epauletted dead so plentifully lying in their gore, exclaimed with desperate emphasis, "Promotion by G—."

There was a beautiful manifestation of the flunkey spirit in the Senate Chamber at Washingon, when that august body deliberately attempted to exclude from the standing committees three of the most talented and industrious members, because they were not apostates from the great principles of the Jefferson Democracy. "They were outside of healthful organizations," according to the convention cur of Senatorial flunkeyism.

The Whig party, it seems, is deemed a healthful political organization, since it caved in to the slave power at the Baltimore Convention. Their platform is their certificate of good health, and, like a ship at quarantine, being duly inspected by the health officers, is certified as in a healthful condition, and may pass into port. So the Whig party, having been cleansed and purged of the contagion of anti-slavery, is declared healthy, and may be admitted into the very respectable ranks of flunkeyism.

Indeed, the only difference between the Whig and Democratic parties, for years past, has been simply this, that the former bowed down to the slave power reluctantly, and the latter, with alacrity. The slave power, consequently, chose this party for the next administration as its most willing slaves to do its dirty work with the least driving and whipping.

The Whig administration, since the decease of Gen. Taylor, has been whedled and duped by the slave power, and managed as a convenient tool or catspaw, as Iago flattered and cajoled the simple Roderigo and used him for his selfish and villanous designs. Indeed, they professed to think and believe that their modern Iago was honest, and if they obeyed his behests properly and faithfully, they would enjoy the promised favors of honest Iago's purse and influence, promotion and the smiles of Desdemona; and, like poor Roderigo, they found their reward in being deceived, despised and stabbed for their servility and meanness, honest Iago having no further use for his pliant knave and dupe. We have no more pity for the Whig party in their downfall than we have for their notable prototype Roderigo. "So mote it be" with all the knaves, slaves and dupes of the slaveocracy.

This is a great country, you know. the land of the "free and home of the brave."

Yours truly,

E.