First Letter to Charles Slack
Background Notes
This is one of three letters written by three of the most important figures in nineteenth century American thought: Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), and Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). The other two letters are also on this website. All three were written to Charles Wesley Slack (1825-1885) who was the organizer of a series of lectures for a literary association called the Fraternity Course sponsored by Theodore Parker’s (1810-1860) Congregational Society. The letters pertain to John Brown’s raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry and the response to it from the Transcendentalists in Massachusetts.
In this first letter written on October 28, 1859, the former slave and now famous black abolitionist, Frederick Douglass explains how he cannot deliver his planned talk entitled “Self Made Men” as scheduled on November 1. Douglass is writing from Canada where he has escaped because he is being pursued by Federal Marshalls who want to arrest him for his association with Brown. Douglass had met with Brown in August and while he was not in favor of the plan, his close association with Brown implicated him in the treasonous raid. From Canada, Douglass went to Great Britain, only returning to the United States the following year after Brown had been hanged and the government was no longer interested in prosecuting others involved in the affair.
Transcription of Primary Source
Confidential as to Marshalls and my whereabouts
Confidential
My dear sir:
Seventeen Marshall are on the look out for me in the States, and to avoid arrest I must avoid a journey to Boston – it is a real calamity that deprives me of the privilege of fulfilling my engagement and speaking to such an audience as that you anticipate – I would have written before – but for the hope that the clouds that now overshadow me would pass away- instead of this they grow darker every hour. In haste yours
Truly
Frederick Douglass
C.W. Slack Esq.
Clifton: C. W.
October 28