The following letter was written on receiving a request from a committee of colored voters for advice as to their action at the presidential election of 1872.
dear Friends,—I have just received your letter of the 29th ult. asking my opinion of your present duty as colored voters in the choice between
General Grant and
Horace Greeley for the presidency.
You state that you have been confused by the contradictory advice given you by such friends of your people as
Charles Sumner on one hand, and
William L. Garrison and
Wendell Phillips on the other; and you ask me, as one whom you are pleased to think ‘free from all bias,’ to add my counsel to theirs.
I thank you for the very kind expression of your confidence and your generous reference to my endeavors to serve the cause of freedom; but I must own that I would fain have been spared the necessity of adding to the already too long list of political epistles.
I have felt it my duty in times past to take an active part—often very distasteful to me—in political matters, having for my first object the deliverance of my country from the crime and curse of slavery.
That great question being now settled forever, I have been more than willing to leave to younger and stronger hands the toils
