[Letter to] Dear Friend, MWC
Contributors: Chapman, Maria Weston, 1806-1885, recipient
Series: Maria Weston Chapman Correspondence (1835-1885)
Published: 1843
Place of publication: Oakland, O[hio]
Language: eng
Format: [manuscript]
Subjects: Correspondence; Women abolitionists; Antislavery movements; History
Notes: Holograph, signed.

Frederick Douglass has given his own version of the incident which Abraham Brooke reported in a previous letter, which was based on information received from Augustus Wattles. [See letter from Abraham Brooke to Maria Weston Chapman, dated Oct. 5, 1843, Call No. Ms.A.9.2 v.19, p.46]. According to Douglass, George Bradburn, after offering a resolution, consumed the afternoon in answering a list of objections. The next morning the chairman, after reading the resolution, said that Bradburn was entitled to the floor. Douglass disputed this because Bradburn was not going to speak to the resolution. The chairman upheld Bradburn, whereupon Remond appealed to the meeting, which sustained the chair. Bradburn conceived the idea that they were trying to hinder his speaking "and made some very offensive personal remarks, alluding to them as colored men, styled their conduct monkeyism---" and continued his speech for the whole day, "except a few minutes when Remond repelled his personalities," but neither called the chair a jackass nor the people monkeys. Abraham Brooke repeats the suggestion that a better arrangement might be made for anti-slavery speakers than the present conventions. Abraham Brooke reports and comments on the situation of the churches. He disapproves of sectarianism. Brooke remarks that "Liberty Hall at Oakland is consecrated to Freedom."