May 8, 1869 Letter to James Redpath

James Redpath was a journalist and fellow radical Abolitionist. Like Higginson he combined rhetoric with activism. In the mid-1850s he traveled throughout the South reporting on slavery and interviewing slaves. His articles were collected and published as The Roving Editor. Also like Higginson, he went to Kansas and befriended John Brown, later writing his biography, The Public Life of Captain John Brown (Boston: 1860). During the Civil War he was a correspondent who traveled with several different generals, including William Tecumseh Sherman. After the War he founded a lecture bureau. Higginson was one of his lecturers. This letter concerns Higginson's lecture on "Democracy and Literature."