J[ohn] Sella Martin to Frederick Douglass, November 1, 1858

A VISIT TO PHILADELPHIA.

FRIEND DOUGLASS:—I am, as you perceive, in the city of Brotherly Love, which epithet, under the peculiar circumstances, is as much a perversion of language as to say the Devil's a Saint. The quiet sect, that stood as sponsors in the christening of Philadelphia, and gave it this beautiful name, remind one of a pigmy standing beside, and pointing up to a giant, and telling those that look on, "I named that fellow Tom Thumb." Philadelphia has outgrown its name; even New Orleans, situated in one of the meanest and most cruel slaveholding States of the South, is far ahead of it. There, free colored people, and respectable looking slaves can ride in the cars and omnibuses of the city; but the wealthiest and most intelligent colored men of the city are proscribed here—and so far has this spirit manifested itself, that colored people are denied admission in the halls where public lectures are given.

There is one lecturer, however, who has made an exception to this rule—that noble man, H. W. Beecher. His services were engaged to lecture at Musical Fund Hall, when some of the respectable citizens who desired to hear him, sought an opportunity to inform him of this proscription, and he replied to them: "Well, gentlemen, I am under obligations to speak here to-night; but in the future, when I come to Philadelphia, I will make it a point to speak in a hall where no class of my fellow-citizens are proscribed;" and Musical Fund Hall was neglected, with all of its advantages, last week, when he delivered that brilliant lecture here. He spoke in Concert Hall, where all might go and hear him. He is to repeat it to-night, there being at least a thousand who failed to gain admission to his last, in consequence of the dense crowd. It is difficult to tell which is the superlative, the prejudice among the whites, or the moral degradation among the blacks, which the former has produced. The colored people, being destitute of political power, have no means of gaining commercial power, and as a consequence, have no social status; and this state of things has produced a supineness that can be measured only by their degradation. Whatever falsity of premise, indirectness of conclusion, and unjustness of inference, Mr. Wm. Whipper's argument of the "Apathy of Despair," may possess or exhibit when applied to other places in the Union, it is lamentably forcible and truthful when applied to Philadelphia.— It is true that the colored people have more work to do here than any place I know; but their status as laborers is but one step remove from slavery—viz., in that of compensation.— As I have intimated, there is very little doing for the elevation of the colored people among themselves.

A week ago last night, the young men had a ratification meeting of the formation and the

plans of the Council of Proscribed Americans, and that meeting confirmed my first impressions that the Philadelphians were not restive under their galling yoke, nor persevering in their efforts to remove it. In the first place, the efforts of the speakers were cold, committed to memory, and written things, which, however beautiful they might have been, failed to awaken even applause, save such as was elicited rather from partiality to the speaker, than the spirit of the speech. In the next place, the hall was a continual scene of emigration and exodus; those that came in met those that were going out, from the commencement of the meeting to its close; and at no one time was the hall full, though three hundred would have crowded it.

I mention these things in the hope that they may cause our young men to speak out the feelings of their souls in such meetings, with the hope of doing good, by awakening feeling in their auditors, rather than bringing their memorized efforts to which have lost all their feeling in the committing of them, and that they come into such meetings at the proper time, and stay till they close. I should not omit to say that there was one extemporaneous speech the most sensible and feeling of any that I heard.

Philadelphia is lacking in another important particular in her religious influence.—There are three Presbyterian and one Baptist church destitute of pastors, and I suppose it has been many years since any church here has had a minister who was the man of the people—one who went into peoples' houses and help up their ragged children until they were ashamed of them—one who struck down the cup of intoxicating drink, rising to the young man's lips—one who depended more on his visiting, and instructed by living Christian truth—one whose denominationalism was no barrier to his usefulness; such men are needed everywhere, but nowhere so much as in Philadelphia.

I have been told, however, that infidelity, as disseminated by anti-slavery lecturers, has done a great deal to produce this state of things here, to which I have made answer that a moral influence so easily overcome, was not worth preserving. The infidelity of anti-slavery is objectionable to many more churches besides Philadelphia churches. I do not wonder at white people making this flimsy excuse and false imputation; but such a spirit among colored people is meaner than the prejudice of white people. White people ignore the rights of black men, because they are black; and black men ignore the rights of public speakers to utter their honest convictions, because they are not Baptists, Methodists, &c. The worst infidelity that I have seen yet, is among those churches who think their houses too sacred for an anti-slavery lecture to be delivered in.—More anon.

J. SELLA MARTIN.

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 1, 1858.