Frederick Douglass’ Newspaper ‘The North Star’

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/28/2006

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) escaped from servitude in 1836 after escaping his Maryland master and fleeing to Massachusetts. It was here in the land of liberty that he began his antislavery movement, using his immense oratorical skills to lecture in the Northern states against slavery. He urged Northerners to assist escaped slaves in using the Underground Railroad and founded a paper "The North Star" December 3, 1847 in Rochester, New York, which was so named because slaves escaping at night followed the North Star in the sky to freedom. Its motto was "Right is of no Sex - Truth is of no Color - God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren." 'The North Star' had a circulation of over 4,000 subscribers and eventually merged with The Liberty Paper in 1851, and was renamed 'Frederick Douglass' Paper.' It sold under this name until 1860, and then Douglass devoted the next three years to publishing an abolitionist magazine called Douglass' Monthly. In 1870 he assumed control of the New Era, a weekly established in Washington, D.C. to serve former slaves. He renamed it The New National Era, and published it until it shut down in 1874. Scarce issue of "The North Star" published April 28, 1848, Rochester, New York, listing Douglass and M.R. Delany as editors, this fine four page paper begins by stating its purpose as "The object of the NORTH STAR will be to attack SLAVERY in all its forms and aspects; advocate UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION; exalt the standard of PUBLIC MORALITY; promote the moral and intellectual improvement of the COLORED PEOPLE; and hasten the day of FREEDOM to the THREE MILLIONS of our ENSLAVED FELLOW COUNTRYMEN." Followed by several articles on slavery, including "The Slave's Idea of Liberty" which reads "You may place the slave where you please; you may dry up to your utmost the fountains of his feelings, the springs of his thought - you may yoke him to your labor, as an ox, which liveth only to work, and worketh only to live, you may put him under any process, which without destroying his value as a slave, will debase and crush him as a rational being - you may do this, and the idea that he was born to be free will survive it all. It is allied to his hope of immortality; it is the ethereal part of his nature, which oppression cannot reach: it is a torch-lit up in his soul by the hand of Deity, and never meant to be extinguished by the hand of man. Gov. McDowell." Some dampstains, else VG to Fine.

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