The original is at the Houghton Library of Harvard University. From the Blagden Collection of Wendell Phillips Papers: 10 letters from M. Pinner to Wendell Phillips, 1860-1873, bMS Am 1953 (1006) [item 8].
Transcribed (by Doron Zeilberger) and posted on the web: November 2003.
By kind permission of the Houghton Library of Harvard University.
No. 191 Broadway
New York Octbr. 20, 1865.
Wendell Phillips Esqr,
Boston, Mass.
My dear friend. Thanks for your favor of 12th inst. I shall expect you in my office next Thursday at 2 P.M. It would be well to bring your Carpet-Bag along, for in my office you would be only one block from Courtland Str, the Str, that leads to the Philadelphia ferry, so I shall expect you to stay with me from 2 P.M. until you leave for Philada.
Try to read Mrs. Rose's book between now and then, and please bring it along, that I may return it at last.
The enclosed pretended synopsis of your recent Boston speech I found in yesterdays "Messager Franco-Americaine", it is in substance the same that the Herald had. If you are therein correctly reported, I don't like your speech. I think this a poor time to abuse individuals, but a very pressing time for your proposing some definite measure, a few steps ahead of all the rest. Suppose you propose the refusal to re-admit the Rebel States until they have adopted universal franchise (in spite of Connt etc.) and suppose you show in a dispassionate manner, how as a friend of every reform, that lends to increase the happiness of the human family, you propose that universal suffrage merely to put an effective weapon into the hands of the negroe to protect himself against the pro-slavery-bred aristocracy of the South, who robbed the negroe of his labor and liberty as long as it could be done with impunity, and who will now rob him as well as before only under different pretences and by new means. Denounce the protection of the negroe as a pretense to cheat him anew, and show by recently exhumed facts and figures, that he is capable of taking care of himself without extra protection. Not only his action in the field but also the rapidity with which negroes in Va have contributed $6,000,000 to the recent 730 loan, and with which so many of the recently liberated ones have learned and are learning to read and write, give strong ponts for arguing the negroe's capacity for being or becoming civilized. Insist, that either the U.S. Constitution should be so amended, that suffrage independent of color, race, or nationality, should at 21 be given to everyone who can read and write, or that the rebellion States before re-admission should give proof of their intended future justice towards the negroe by adopting universal suffrage and by removing before re-admission all local laws drawing a line of distinction between the races. It appears to me, that such demands, if made by you, would be more effective, if you dwell upon the fact, that while, as above, in favor of every reform that tends to increase human happiness, you plead in particular the cause of the negroe, because he is more oppressed than any other part of the community, and because, as in all history so in the case of the negroe, prejudices have been formed and spread against the oppressed, so as to lessen the seriousness[?] of the crimes of the oppressor by making it appear, that the oppressed deserved his fate and that the opressor was justifiable. In asking for the above amendment to the U.S. Constitution ignore the franchise to ?oomen, simply because the nation is not prepared for it yet, and because if you ask too much and unseasonable things, we probably will get nothing at all. Suffrafe for the negroe by one means or another seems to me obtainable, and it would be a pity, if by couching the demand into too harsh language or by other mismanagement that chance should be lost. And suffrage for the negroe at this particular time means also defeat of the bogus Democracy and all other reactionary elements for many, many years to come. Therefore pray be guarded and don't feel offended at the frank advice of a friend, -- To the whole family fo Mr. Garrison please give my compliments and tell them, that I heartily wish them joy to the engagement of Miss Fanny. For the sake of the past good deeds of that noble family let us hope, that Mrs. G. may yet recover, that Mr. G. may prosper by his new commission, and that Miss F. and the rest may always be happy. Ditto ditto to Mrs. Phillipps [sic], and ditto, ditto to you.
Your friend and servt M Pinner