Frederick Douglass

The long and intimate, though by no means friendly relation which unhappily subsisted between you and myself, leads me to hope that you will easily account for the great liberty which I now take in addressing you in this open and public manner.

The same fact may possibly remove any disagreeable surprise which you may experience on again finding your name coupled with mine in any other way than in an advertisement, accurately describing my person, and offering a large sum for my arrest.

I intend to make use of you as a weapon with which to assail the system of slavery—as a means of concentrating the facts of that institution; as a means of exposing lightnings of truth upon the vampire which is sucking the lifeblood of both races.

I have selected this day on which to address you, because it is the anniversary of my emancipation; and knowing of no better way, I am led to this as the best mode of celebrating that truly important event. Just ten years ago this beautiful September morning, yon bright sun beheld me a slave—a poor, degraded chattel—trembling at the sound of your voice, lamenting that I was a man.

Now I am free, however, and I trust in God that I shall remain so, though you should exert all your power to reduce me again to slavery.