APPENDIX 151 
4. CIRCULARS ISSUED BY 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS 
WHEN PRESIDENT OF THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS 
AND TRUST COMPANY 
(CIRCULAR No. 1) 
To the Depositors of the Freedmen’s Savings and Trust 
Company: 
The recent legislation of Congress, so amending the 
charter of the Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Company 
as to place the institution upon a broader and firmer Tos 
and give to its trustees a larger measure of discretion and 
control of its management, may be well enough made the 
occasion for a brief statement of facts and circumstances 
which have a bearing upon the legislation in question and 
upon the future existence and success of the Freedmen’s 
Bank. 
It is very evident that Congress was animated in its 
legislation by a generous desire to conserve and strengthen 
an institution of known usefulness to the people in whose 
interest it was created. 
In regard to the condition of this corporation, certain 
facts have already come to public knowledge through the 
publication of the report of Mr. Meigs, the bank examiner. 
It is not necessary to disguise or explain away by false 
processes the facts therein stated. It is known that on the 
Ist of January, 1874, our liabilities exceeded our assets to 
the extent of $217,000, and it is also known that nothing 
has occurred since that time to materially diminish the 
space between assets and liabilities, though it is due to 
state that several considerable loans which were supposed 
at the time the report was made to be bad, have turned 
out to be good loans. 
This deficit now admitted and never denied by the 
undersigned is very easily accounted for, and it may serve 
a good purpose to state the cause of its existence. 
First. The managers of the “Freedmen’s Savings and 
Trust Company” have unfortunately endeavored to make