Post, Amy Kirby. Letter to Frederick Douglass.

Title

Post, Amy Kirby. Letter to Frederick Douglass.

Creator

Post, Amy Kirby, 1802-1889

Contributor

Frederick Douglass

Date

1850-08-00

Description

Handwritten letter from Amy Kirby Post to Frederick Douglass. Post writes to Douglass about her reactions to the Fugitive Slave Law and using violence to impede slave catchers.

Subject

Post, Amy Kirby, b. 1802

Is Part Of

Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers

Rights

The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/

Identifier

850

Location

Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester

Transcription

              My Dear Frederick I do always feel diffident in presum
ing to express any dissent from thy judgment, as I know
thy extraordinary clear vision, and logical powers of
reasoning, very easily puts my sage conclusions
in a fog, and makes me feel like the merest baby
before thee, but be all that as it may, allow me
in the freedom of an own sister to [obliterated

                                              ] say to thee that I cannot feel
happy about thee, since thy conclusion to give slave cach [sic]                                                                           ers a bloodc hound reception, In the light of thy own
good, thy own safety and the good of the cause, it brings a
cloud of sadness on me, thee can much more readily
see the reasons than I can show them to thee, and if thee
will give thy self time to weigh them, I have little fear on
which side the balance would be, Allow me dear
Frederick ^to repeat^ that I still doubt the rightfulness and the as well as
thee polacy [sic] of making the Chaplin case an especial [sic] object of
Anti Slavery effort, I think you are were mainly indebted to the
fugitive Bill, for the interest manifested in the evening meeting
yet you are bound to apply thee funds in a different direction
but the most mortifying of all, ( and yet the most confirming
that I am not wholy [sic] blind) was that you were obliged to resort
to falshood (sic) to make it take with this proslavery community
whose money you hoped to get, to assert that it merely
happened that as Chaplin was riding out on the [7 avenue?]
that he kindly took in a couple of men who asked for him

(Page 2)
to take them on a [pace?] as they were walking the same
way

Annotations

Amy Post, an abolitionist is writing from Rochester, New York to Frederick Douglass. Post expresses her displeasure in Douglass's interest in using force against slave catchers. The Fugitive Slave Bill, which would be passed in September of 1850 made it illegal and punishable for Northerners to aid escaping slaves. They were not allowed to impede slave catchers from the South who traveled to the North to reclaim fugitive slaves. Post references to the William Chaplin, a white, abolitionist who argued for defending fugitive slaves from Southern slave catchers, using whatever means necessary.

Tags

Abolitionism

Collection

D.93 Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers

Citation

Post, Amy Kirby, 1802-1889, “Post, Amy Kirby. Letter to Frederick Douglass.,” RBSCP Exhibits, accessed November 24, 2024, https://rbscpexhibits.lib.rochester.edu/items/show/3140.

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