Frederick Douglass: First Editorial of the North Star

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

In his inaugural editorial, Douglass outlines his reasons for starting his own newspaper. In the first paragraph he notes that he has long desired to see a newspaper edited from the perspective of the former slave. Although there had been a number of African American newspapers, beginning with Freedom’s Journal in 1827, most had been short-lived, and all had been headed by men who were born free. Douglass believed that as a former slave he could offer a unique position on both the antislavery movement and the civil rights issues that concerned black Americans.

The second paragraph establishes that the North Star was operating out of offices in the central business district of Rochester. Douglass was not trained as a printer, so he planned to rely on local skilled artisans to assist with the actual printing of his weekly. In fact, it turned out that the printing equipment Douglass purchased was inadequate, and the North Star contracted with a local printing firm to produce its weekly paper. Douglass expresses optimism that the newspaper would be well received, noting that a steady number of subscriptions had come in and that he had engaged many individuals to contribute letters and editorials. It was common for abolitionists to act as reporting agents, writing letters of their experiences on the lecture circuit. These abolitionists also acted as field agents, gathering subscriptions for the newspapers. The first issue of Douglass’s paper counted agents in nine states, from New York to Michigan.

Douglass next turns to circumstances surrounding the tension between white and black abolitionists. Douglass states that his desire to start his own antislavery newspaper stems from his ability as a black reformer to address the particular concerns of African Americans in American society. In paragraph 4, he argues that as a former slave, he is the best qualified to advocate for the abolition of the institution. Although Douglass was a strong advocate of an integrated society and of blacks and whites working together for the abolition of slavery, he began to seek a way to make his unique voice heard. When Douglass took up antislavery lecturing for Garrisonian organizations in 1841, those groups were dominated by white reformers, especially, of course, by William Lloyd Garrison. Since Douglass was one of the few lecturers who could attest to the evils of slavery based on personal experience, antislavery societies wanted him to focus and limit his orations to telling his personal story. However, within a few years of gaining his freedom, Douglass had expanded his knowledge and wanted to express his thoughts and opinions on a wider variety of issues related to abolition and society at large. He came to resent that he was used essentially as an exhibit to show northern audiences that slavery was real and required their attention.

One reason that Douglass wrote his first autobiography in 1845 at the age of twenty-seven was to refute the common accusation that a man with such poise and eloquence could not possibly have been a slave. As he traveled the lecture circuit and read widely in literature and history, Douglass longed to engage with men and women outside the circle of Garrisonian abolitionists who had been his almost constant companions. This editorial expresses his ambivalence about angering the white abolitionists with whom he had worked so closely for more than six years. Although he became more engaged with black reformers and a civil rights agenda, Douglass always valued integrated reform activity.

Since many white abolitionists did not have a personal stake in seeing an end to racial discrimination, they were also not as committed to black civil rights as were black reformers. For this reason, even though most black abolitionists still affiliated with integrated organizations such as the American Anti-Slavery Society, they formed other associations to focus on specific economic concerns, to increase educational opportunities, and to gain full and equal suffrage. While Douglass rarely wavered in his belief that slavery could be overcome only through the actions of an integrated force of reformers, his involvement in the National Negro Convention movement increasingly influenced his belief that African Americans needed to be more than token examples of the wrongness of slavery. In paragraph 4 he argues that the struggle to end slavery requires strong black orators, editors, and authors. Since he filled all of those roles, Douglass saw himself and his newspaper as the appropriate extension and example of racial activism.

African American newspapers had little success before the North Star. Most were very short-lived, and none was profitable. The editorial addresses this issue in the fifth paragraph. By the time Douglass began publishing his weekly, there had been at least nine newspapers edited by African Americans. The first of these, Freedom’s Journal, was published in New York from 1827 to 1829 by John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish. New York City was the location for five additional black publications in the early nineteenth century, all of which eventually failed. After Cornish’s first newspaper failed when his partnership dissolved, he issued the Rights of All in 1829. He partnered with Phillip Bell and Charles B. Ray in the short-lived Weekly Advocate (1837) and in the Colored American (1837–1841). David Ruggles tried his hand with the Mirror of Liberty (1838–1840) and starting in 1843 Thomas Van Rensselaer edited the Ram’s Horn, which failed in 1848. In Philadelphia, the National Reformer was edited by William Whipper, and the Northern Star and Freedmen’s Advocate was briefly edited at Albany, New York, by Stephen Myers. Douglass’s partner, Martin R. Delany, edited the Mystery from Pittsburgh beginning in 1843. Both the Mystery and the Ram’s Horn were in publication at the time Douglass began the North Star. William Lloyd Garrison, himself the longtime editor of The Liberator, and others had warned Douglass of the uncertainty of success in a newspaper venture. Although Douglass edited a newspaper continuously from 1847 until 1863, he always struggled financially to keep his business solvent and often relied on donations from wealthy abolitionists for business expenses. Despite the risks, Douglass’s editorial makes clear that the North Star aimed to demonstrate that a black newspaper could be successful. He noted that the venture was risky but that he was resolved to move forward.

In the final paragraph, Douglass shares part of his life history, demonstrating how fortunate he was to escape from slavery and to be in a position to edit a newspaper. A mere nine years earlier he had been a slave, “shrouded in the midnight ignorance of that infernal system” and with a “spirit crushed and broken.” Settling in New Bedford, Massachusetts, he worked for three years as a “daily laborer” until he was hired as a full-time antislavery lecturer. He speaks of having embarked for England, under “the apprehension of being re-taken into bondage.” Douglass then describes the aid provided by his friends in England for both gaining his freedom and starting his newspaper. Now, “urged on in our enterprise by a sense of duty to God and man,” he believes “that our effort will be crowned with entire success.”