CHAPTER XIV

SHARING THE RESPONSIBILITIES AND HONORS OF FREEDOM

The course of events in the succeeding thirty years proved that Frederick Douglass was wholly right in his determination not to take up his residence in one of the Southern states for political purposes. Had he followed the advice of some of his friends, his career would have been considerably marred by the exigencies of party and sectional politics, and his character as a natural leader of his people would, in all probability, have shrunken to that of a state politician. He did the wise thing, however, in changing his residence from Rochester to Washington. This brought him in closer touch with his people, as well as near to the law-making forces of the nation.

After he became settled in his new home, he soon found his heart and hands full of occupations that tried his soul. He was fairly overwhelmed with all kinds of schemes and propositions that were carried to him, urging him to do this or that for the protection and elevation of the race. It required a mind of more than ordinary shrewdness to discriminate between the practical and impractical. Many of the Negroes seemed to think him capable of performing miracles in the way of undoing the effects of slavery. It required a stout spirit to listen unmoved to the wail that came from the hearts of his sadly distracted people. Those of us who are living forty years after the close of the war, can little appreciate to what an extent the glory of emancipation was shadowed by the miseries of a whole race suddenly set free with no preparation for freedom. When one studies the history of the years that followed emancipation, and learns of the many sins and errors of the time, and the retribution that they brought upon the bewildered people in whose name they were committed, it must seem strange that the Negro race could survive and make the progress it has made. Through all the confusion and clamor of wants, sorrows, sufferings and disappointments, Mr. Douglass kept his head, and was at all times philosophical, certain that the good accomplished was more important than the seeming failures; that the hindrances to progress were transitory, the forces of progress permanent. After he had settled in Washington, two things at once engaged his attention: the publication of another paper, _The New National Era_, and the Freedmen’s Bank.

There was apparently a pressing need for a national organ to advance the cause of the Negro, and it was believed that the name of Frederick Douglass at its head would surely bring it a wide circulation, as well as a commanding influence. He took hold of the project with characteristic vigor and invested a large amount of his savings in the venture. With the assistance of his two sons, both practical printers, the paper proved to be one of the greatest helps of the hour. Some of Mr. Douglass’s best utterances are to be found in the _New Era_. Its columns were open to the leading colored men and women of that time and it exerted a wide and salutary influence. However, it failed of support. The enterprise cost Mr. Douglass between nine and ten thousand dollars. He seems to have anticipated its financial misfortunes, but said of it afterward: “The journal was valuable, while it lasted, and the experiment was to me full of instruction which has to some extent been heeded, for I have kept well out of newspaper undertakings since, so I have no tears to shed.”

When Mr. Douglass went to Washington, he found established there the Freedmen’s Bank. It was chartered by Congress and was run and managed in connection with the Freedmen’s Bureau. “It was,” as Mr. Douglass says, “more than a bank. There was something missionary in its composition.” Its managers were men of character and religion, and were interested in everything that could point the way of true living to the ex-slave. To teach the important lesson of thrift was its main object.

For a time this bank flourished very well. Branches were established in various parts of the South. The poor freedmen in the bottom lands of Mississippi and other isolated places quickly learned the use and meaning of the institution; and eagerly and gratefully committed to its keeping their small earnings. Thousands of these depositors first came to know and realize their relationship to the government at Washington through it. The owners of United States bonds did not feel more secure than did these trusting new citizens of the republic.

The bank and its purposes appealed to Mr. Douglass. He felt it his duty to do anything in his power to help the benevolent enterprise. It was not long before he was elected one of its trustees. He accepted the post and, as an earnest of his interest and confidence in it, placed several thousand dollars in its keeping. He says: “It seemed fitting to cast in my lot with my brother freedmen and help build up an institution which represented the thrift and economy of my people to so striking an advantage, for the more millions accumulated there, I thought, the more consideration and respect would be shown to the colored people by the whole country.”

At first he was not active in his new office. He seldom attended the board meetings. The men in charge were of so high a character and had brought the bank up to such rank that his faith in it was well-nigh absolute. He was surprised when soon notified that he had been elected president. Before assuming this post, in 1871, he asked for a statement of the bank’s affairs, not because he was suspicious, but that he might the more intelligently take hold of his new duties. He received assurances from the officers that everything was in excellent condition but he at once began a wholesale policy of retrenchment in the expenses of management. From the showing made by those in a position to know and to be believed, Mr. Douglass felt so confident that everything was as it appeared to be that he loaned the bank $10,000 of his own money, until it could realize on a part of its securities. Soon afterward several things connected with the bank’s management excited his distrust. The money loaned by him was not repaid so promptly as it should have been; some of the trustees had removed their own deposits and opened accounts with other banks; and the new president discovered that through dishonest agents, heavy losses were sustained in the South; that there was a discrepancy in the accounts amounting to about $40,000; that the “reserve” which the bank by its charter was obliged to maintain was entirely exhausted. All this Mr. Douglass learned after he had been president for only three months. Being convinced that things were rapidly going from bad to worse, he immediately reported the condition of the bank to the Finance Committee of the United States Senate. The trustees upon whose figures and reports Mr. Douglass relied for his

## action, now tried to retract their statements and did their utmost to

stay the hand of the government, but the Senate committee accepted his representations and immediately proceeded to bring the bank to the end of its remarkable career.

Mr. Douglass did not take advantage of his private knowledge of its insolvency to remove his $2,000 on deposit, as some trustees had done. In this, as in other things, he acted with perfect openness and absolute honesty. Nevertheless the bank’s troubles brought to him no end of bitter criticism. The number of open accounts at the time of failure was over 60,000 and the total amount deposited during the period of its existence was about $57,000,000.

Bad management may truthfully be written on the face of this greatest single setback to the Negro’s progress. Viewed in the light of the condition of these people, striving by might and main to promote their own interests, the failure of the Freedmen’s Bank was little less than a crime. The mischief had all been done before Mr. Douglass took charge of the institution. As he says: “Not a dollar of its millions was loaned by me or with my approval. The fact is, and all investigation will show, that I was married to a corpse. When I became connected with the bank I had a tolerably fair name for honest dealing. I had expended in the publication of my paper in Rochester thousands of dollars annually and had often to depend upon my credit to bridge over immediate wants. But no man here or elsewhere can say that I ever wronged him out of one cent.”

This miserable failure distressed Mr. Douglass more than any other man in the country, because he saw how wide-spread would be the loss of confidence in him and in his people. The mere fact that his own conscience was clear and that his prompt action prevented further losses did not soften his disappointment. On the contrary, the subject continued to be a source of public bitterness and suspicion for many years, but he was large enough to grow out of and beyond any evil effects arising from it, so far as his own standing and reputation were concerned.

Important as was the Freedmen’s Bank, both as a success and as a failure, it was but a small part of the many evidences that the black race was everywhere awake to the fact that it was living in a new era. The transformation of the Negro’s status from that of a quasi-denizen to that of a full-fledged citizen of America was a revolution of far-reaching import, but it was accompanied by little demonstration. The only proof that a great change had been brought about was the eagerness with which the colored people attempted to realize all the benefits belonging to full citizenship. Up to this time, of course, they had never had any part in politics, but it did not take them long to learn the game. Educated Negroes and those who had but little education, very quickly mastered its tricks and made the most of their opportunities. In every Southern state colored men were easily elected to the state legislatures and to other high offices.

In Louisiana, Oscar J. Dunn, P. B. S. Pinchback, and C. C. Antoine; in South Carolina, Alonzo J. Ransier and Robert H. Gleaves; and in Mississippi, Alexander Davis, were elected Lieutenant-Governors. Colored men were also chosen for important county and town offices;—there were Negro sheriffs, county clerks, justices of the peace. To this period also belongs the election of the only two colored men ever given seats in the United States Senate, Hiram R. Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, of Mississippi. In the lower house of Congress, nearly every state in the South was represented by Negroes. In addition to these elective offices of honor and distinction, a large number of the leaders of the race held appointive Federal offices, as postmasters, and as collectors of customs and internal revenue, and for the first time in the history of the United States, colored men were appointed to diplomatic positions.

In recent years, students and writers of the Reconstruction period, have indulged in a good deal of unmerited abuse of the colored men who, for a brief season, and without previous training, under the leadership of white politicians, held political posts. It is a deplorable fact that too many inferior persons were elected to fill important state and county offices in the reconstructed states. It is quite true that the colored citizen voted for unfit men of his own race because there was no one else to vote for. This same freedman would more willingly have used his franchise for a white man of character and ability, if he had had the opportunity. The fact is that democracy does not stand still for want of fit men, whether in the Bowery district in New York or in the Black Belt of South Carolina. The Negroes who were elected to Congress, however, were, with but few exceptions, men of character and superior intelligence. B. K. Bruce of Mississippi, John R. Lynch, Robert Brown Elliot, A. J. Ransier, and Robert Smalls were highly creditable representatives of a race that had just emerged from the night of slavery. In fact, it is surprising that there were any colored men in the South who had enough spirit and intelligence even to aspire to the things that but yesterday were beyond their reach. It is also worthy of note that among the Negroes holding positions of dignity and trust, there were only a few cases in which that trust was knowingly betrayed.

The eagerness with which colored men, of any ability at all, sought public posts was largely due to the fact that there were few places open to honorable ambitions, outside of public office, to which they could aspire. Not many at that time had any training for school-teaching or the professions. Politics was the one door that opened most widely to Negroes of ability. The people at large seemed to enjoy the novelty of seeing these new citizens of the country so quickly take their places in the civil service of the government, and wear whatever honors they could win. The same sentiment that forced the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments into the Constitution of the United States, was gratified when educated and eloquent ex-slaves took their seats in both branches of Congress.

While it lasted, this was all very pleasing, hopeful, and interesting, but a reaction was bound to come. The constituency behind these representative leaders lacked the necessary intelligence, knowledge, and business experience. By such an electorate men may be chosen to power, but they cannot long be held in power.

It was an unfortunate thing, too, that the freedmen learned their first lessons in politics when public morals were at so low an ebb. Many sins were committed and tolerated in the interest of party success. Many desperate men in a spirit at once predatory and partisan, invaded the South and attempted to instruct the colored people in ways that were dark, but ways that led to party victory. These men were bad models for a learning race to follow. Although it was unreasonable to expect these newly emancipated people to be superior to their white leaders, yet, by recent writers, they have been held accountable for whatever sins were committed in this office-holding era.

Mr. Douglass, in the midst of the political prosperity of his race, was not misled as to the outcome. No one saw more clearly than he the uncertainty of the position to which it had been elevated by recent events. While it is true he was at no time a political power in the South, the colored men who came into office looked to him for counsel and advice. He rejoiced in the many evidences of personal worth and talent displayed by Negroes who, for the first time in American history, were having some real part in the government of the country. Yet experience made him feel and declare that, after all, “the true basis of rights is the capacity of the individual.” He urgently pleaded that the government should give the freedman education that he might have knowledge to use his suffrage in such a manner as to preserve his own liberty, and contribute to the public welfare.

Mr. Douglass enjoyed a full share of the honors and responsibilities of office-holding. In each succeeding administration after the war, posts and places came to him almost as a matter of course, because of his prominence as a representative of the enfranchised race. During the administration of President Grant, he was appointed one of the councilmen of the District of Columbia, and afterward was elected a member of the legislature of the District. He soon resigned the last position to accept the secretaryship of the commission appointed by Grant to visit San Domingo for the purpose of negotiating a treaty for the annexation of that island to the United States. The commission was composed of Senator B. F. Wade, Dr. S. G. Howe, and Andrew D. White, President of Cornell University. The country was somewhat startled by the innovation of placing a colored man in a position to represent the government on so important a mission. Its purpose failed. Opposition on the part of Senator Sumner and other influential Republicans was of the most bitter and uncompromising sort.

The political feud that arose from General Grant’s San Domingan policy carried many men out of the Republican party. Mr. Douglass was placed in an awkward position in accepting the appointment, because his great friend, Senator Sumner, was the leader of the opposition to the President’s plan of annexation. He admired and was personally attached to both because of their heroic services in the cause of freedom and citizenship for his people. Explaining his attitude, he said: “I am free to say that, had I been guided only by the promptings of my heart, I should, in this controversy, have followed Charles Sumner. He was not only the most clear-sighted, brave, and uncompromising friend of my race who had ever stood upon the floor of the Senate, but he was to me a loved, honored, and precious personal friend.”

After Senator Sumner had arraigned President Grant in a notable speech in the Senate, Mr. Douglass happened to be a caller at the White House and was asked by the President what he now thought of his friend from Massachusetts. True to his feelings, Douglass frankly replied that, in his opinion, the Senator was sincere in his position, believing that in opposing annexation he defended the cause of the colored race, as he had always done. “I saw that my reply was not satisfactory,” Douglass observes, “and I said, ‘What do you think, Mr. President, of Senator Sumner?’ He replied with some feeling, ‘I think he is mad.’”

By his perfect frankness, Mr. Douglass was able to retain the respect and confidence of both men. He agreed with President Grant in his annexation policy and had, at the same time, a special fondness for the Massachusetts Senator. He frequently dined with the latter and they were often seen walking arm in arm in the corridors of the Capitol, while Douglass embraced every opportunity to sound the praises of his friend. In an address delivered at New Orleans before a convention of colored men, during this Grant-Sumner feud, he said: “There is now at Washington a man who represents the future and is a majority in himself,—a man at whose feet Grant learns wisdom. That man is Charles Sumner. I know them both; they are great men, but Sumner is as steady as the north star; he is no flickering light. For twenty-five years he has worked for the Republican party and I hope I may cease forever, if I cease to give all honor to Charles Sumner.” And later he said: “As a man of integrity and truth, Charles Sumner was high above suspicion, and not all the Grants in Christendom will rob him of his well-earned character.”

Notwithstanding his repeatedly declared loyalty to the Senator, Mr. Douglass was found in the ranks doing valiant service for the reëlection of General Grant for a second term. His coöperation was needed in some quarters, because the colored voters were not a little confused when such stalwart friends as Sumner, Senator Trumbull, of Illinois; Carl Schurz, of Missouri; and Horace Greeley, of New York, were found in the “camp of the enemy,” fighting the Republican party. The National Convention of Colored Men, held in New Orleans in April, 1872, affords an interesting example of how puzzling was the split in the Republican organization to the average Negro voter. This was a very large and representative body. The members were in a state of grave apprehension, on account of the division in the ranks of the black man’s party. Many of the leading delegates in attendance were uncertain to whom their allegiance should be given. It was difficult for a colored man in those days not to be with Sumner, right or wrong.

It was here that Mr. Douglass demonstrated his power as a political leader. His speech as president of the convention was a notable effort. It was telegraphed in full to the New York _Herald_, and throughout the country it was widely circulated and read, as a campaign document. It did more than any other one thing to hold the colored people in party lines. In addition to this, Douglass took an active part in the ensuing struggle, and no orator in the Grant-Greeley contest was more popular than he. To the black voter, who wanted to follow the Liberal Republicans led by Senator Sumner, he urged that there was “no path out of the Republican party that did not lead directly into the camp of the Democratic party—away from our friends, directly to our enemies.” It was in this campaign, too, that he made use of the well-known party aphorism, “The Republican party is the ship, and all else is the sea.”

What was more important and interesting than any other thing in this contest, so far as Mr. Douglass was concerned, was the singular recognition shown him by the Republicans of New York, who placed his name on the ticket as one of the electors of that state. No other colored man in the history of the country had ever been so honored. When the electoral college met in Albany, he was commissioned to carry the New York vote to the capital of the nation.

Though he had done valiant service for the reëlection of General Grant, Mr. Douglass neither asked nor received any reward in the form of an office. At that time there were but few honors in the gift of the President that could be considered within the reach of a colored man. The one diplomatic post which he could have obtained for the asking—as minister to Hayti—he made no effort to get, but generously supported his friend E. D. Bassett, of Philadelphia, for it. Mr. Bassett was a man of fine attainments and exceptionally well qualified for the office. This act of deference to the claims of others was characteristic of Mr. Douglass in all of his relationships to the prominent Negroes of his generation.

In 1877, and after the election and inauguration of President Hayes, the whole country was more or less startled by the announcement that Frederick Douglass had been appointed Marshal of the District of Columbia. This office was one of much political and social responsibility, and the appointment of an ex-slave produced a sensation in Washington. As Mr. Douglass says, “It came upon the people of the District as a great surprise and almost a punishment, and provoked something like a scream, I will not say a yell, of popular displeasure.” This was not an exaggerated statement of the public feeling directed against the appointment. Plans were set on foot to secure the defeat of his nomination in the United States Senate. It seemed impossible for the people at the capital to view the President’s action in any other way than as the degradation of an exalted office. They were sure that Mr. Douglass would use his place to “Africanize the District courts”; and the great social functions of the White House, with a Negro as “Lord High Chamberlain,” would become the laughing-stock of the enlightened world.

If Mr. Douglass had been a man of less tact and intelligence, and had not occupied so high a place in popular esteem, he could not have withstood the strength and bitterness of the opposition. His good standing, in spite of his color, saved him and the Hayes administration from a humiliating surrender to popular prejudice. When his name reached the Senate, it was confirmed without serious discussion. Senator Conkling had charge of the matter, and swept away all opposition in a perfect storm of eloquent ridicule of the reasons presented for rejection. Unfortunately, the Senate’s action did not wholly end the agitation. Every word and act of Mr. Douglass’s was scrutinized for some proof of his unfitness. Shortly after the confirmation of his appointment, he delivered an address in the city of Baltimore, taking as his theme “Our National Capital.” It was an interesting mixture of praise and criticism, though in no way the result of recent occurrences, for he had delivered the same speech in Washington some months before and it provoked no discussion. He was, therefore, greatly surprised to find, when he returned to the capital, that the old animosity which had spent itself in attempting to defeat his appointment, was again aroused. The objectionable portions of his Baltimore lecture were quoted and commented upon in terms of unqualified bitterness. An effort was made to induce the sureties on his bond to withdraw, and in this way disqualify him to act in his official capacity. Strong pressure was brought to bear on the President to relieve the capital of the nation of the insufferable offense of an official who had so little sense of the proprieties as to hold up Washington and its citizens to public ridicule. All this, however, proved to be of no effect. His bondsmen, one of whom was a wealthy and prominent Democrat of the District, could not be persuaded to embarrass the Negro marshal by withdrawing their names. Hayes was likewise firm in resisting all efforts to remove Mr. Douglass, who refers gratefully to the President as follows: “When all Washington was in an uproar, and a wild clamor rent the air for my removal from the office of marshal, on account of the lecture delivered by me in Baltimore, and when petitions were flowing in upon him demanding my degradation, he nobly rebuked the mad spirit of persecution by openly declaring his purpose to retain me in my place.”

Douglass’s successful fight in retaining his position of honor was interesting, not so much because of his personal standing, as because it was typical of the whole struggle of his race, since emancipation, to win their way into the confidences of the American people by proving themselves capable of using their liberty and their citizenship in a proper manner.

If Mr. Douglass had been sacrificed to the demands of popular prejudice, it would have served as a disqualifying precedent in the matter of future opportunities of colored men with honorable ambitions. In a short while, all opposition was quieted, and the new marshal pursued the routine of his duties without hindrance or serious embarrassment. The judges and attorneys of the District soon learned to treat the Negro official with respect and courtesy. None of the awful things predicted came to pass, and the powers that stood behind him and were responsible for him were wholly vindicated.

During the trying ordeal from which he had so successfully emerged, Mr. Douglass complained somewhat petulantly that “no colored man in the city uttered one public word in defense or extenuation of me or my Baltimore speech, except Dr. Charles B. Purvis.” He was always sensitive to the least evidence of opposition or slight on the part of his own people. For a man who had done so much for his race at a time when it was unable to do anything for itself, it was, perhaps, quite natural for him to feel as he did, now that so many voices were lifted against him. Whatever hostility or indifference the colored people in the District exhibited toward Mr. Douglass, was probably due to jealousy of his leadership and a professed chagrin on account of the alleged willingness on his part to accept the office with the abridgment of the social privileges enjoyed by previous marshals.

His answer to these complaints was such as to satisfy any reasonable person that it meant no surrender of principle. All the functions that legally belonged to his office he performed. The ornamental duties that had grown up by custom and usage, he willingly left to others. He had enjoyed more social opportunities than any colored man in the country and he possessed infinite tact and a fine sense of discrimination as to rights and privileges. Frequently while he was marshal, he was called upon to introduce distinguished strangers to the President. He said: “I was ever a welcome visitor at the Executive Mansion on state occasions and on all others while Rutherford B. Hayes was President of the United States.”

As time passed, his own people, as well as other men in Washington, came to admire Douglass’s good sense as well as his fine bearing on all occasions. The proudest event in his official life was associated with the inauguration of General James A. Garfield as President of the United States. The Marshal of the District of Columbia was called upon to act an important part in the greatest of all national ceremonies. He was brought into touch with the retiring as well as the incoming President. He had the honor of escorting them both from the chamber of the United States Senate to the east front of the Capitol where the oath of office was to be taken by President Garfield and where he delivered his inaugural address to a vast concourse of people.

In speaking of that experience, Douglass says with pardonable pride:

“I felt myself standing on new ground, on a height never before trodden by any of my people, one heretofore occupied only by members of the Caucasian race.... I deemed the event highly important as a new circumstance in my career, as a new recognition of my class, and as a new step in the progress of the nation. Personally, it was a striking contrast to my early condition. Yonder I was an unlettered slave, toiling under the ‘Negro breaker’; here I was the United States Marshal of the capital of the nation, having under my care and guidance the sacred persons of an ex-President and the President-elect of a nation of sixty millions of people, and was armed with a nation’s power to arrest any arm raised against them. While I was not insensible or indifferent to the fact that I was treading the high places of the land, I was not conscious of any unsteadiness of head or heart. I was a United States Marshal by accident. I was no less Frederick Douglass, identified with a proscribed class, whose perfect and practical equality with other American citizens, was yet far down the steps of time. Yet I was not sorry to have this brief authority for I rejoiced in the fact that a colored man could occupy this height and that the precedent was valuable.”

Thus it was that Mr. Douglass esteemed every honor or favor earned and received by him, to mean some fresh recognition of the worth of the Negro race. He sustained a very close and cordial relationship to Mr. Garfield. He had done effective service in the campaign that resulted in the election of the new President, whose fine abilities and robust Americanism he greatly admired. Shortly after the inauguration, Mr. Douglass was summoned to the White House. Garfield wished to discuss with this acknowledged leader of the Negro race his policy in reference to appointments of colored men to office. He assured Mr. Douglass of his intention to place capable colored men in a higher grade of positions in the diplomatic service, and he asked if, in Douglass’s opinion, nations composed of white people would object to receiving colored men as representatives of the American government. He also assured Douglass that Senator Conkling’s wish for his (Douglass’s) reappointment as Marshal of the District of Columbia would be granted with pleasure. The Negro leader found the position thoroughly congenial to him, and it was a matter of satisfaction to realize that he had so successfully lived down past objections that no one now raised a voice against him. But for reasons that were never divulged to him, he was displaced, and another was appointed to the post.

Though he was keenly disappointed and chagrined, Douglass believed in Mr. Garfield and was not inclined to censure him because of his broken promise. He had strong faith that the President was about to carry out a policy of recognition of the colored race which would be more liberal than that of any of his predecessors. He felt that the colored people at this time needed a firm friend. He clearly saw that his race in respect to its rights of citizenship was slipping back from the high position occupied by it ten years prior to this time. He feared that the reaction which began to set in after the withdrawal of Federal troops from the South in 1876 would carry his people to something like political serfdom unless some strong hand would come to their aid.

The assurances now given to him by President Garfield that the Negro and his cause would receive fair and honest treatment relieved his anxiety despite his own displacement, and he confidently expected that the administration of General Garfield would mean much to Negro progress in all directions.

Alas for human hopes! Before the big-hearted man could put his good intentions into effect, the assassin had done his evil work. Mr. Douglass, like every one else close to the President, was overwhelmed with grief. He said: “Few men in this country felt more keenly than I the shock created by the assassination of President Garfield and few men had better reason for this feeling.”

When Vice-President Arthur succeeded to the presidency, Mr. Douglass was appointed Recorder of Deeds of the District of Columbia. This was a lucrative office and a good deal of patronage was attached to it. Being the first colored man to be appointed to the post, he had to face the opposition that usually attaches to an innovation; but the objections were not of a serious nature and soon subsided.

He continued in this place for five years. When Mr. Cleveland came to the presidency he rather expected to be removed summarily; but the Democratic chief magistrate proved to be less of a party man than either the Recorder or the average Republican expected. The new President was too high-minded to be a mere partisan, and to Mr. Douglass’s surprise, he was treated with much respect and kindness. He and his wife were invited to all public functions given at the White House and Mr. Cleveland in every way showed that he shared the public esteem in which the great Negro was so universally held. He was allowed to occupy the position for quite a year under the Democratic administration. Then instead of removing or asking for his resignation in the usually abrupt way, the President graciously wrote to know when it would be convenient for him to give up the post.

Mr. Cleveland further indicated his kindly regard for the colored people of the country by promising them that his election would not mean a curtailment of their liberties, as some of them feared. For this assurance Mr. Douglass made public acknowledgment. The statements of the President were timely and quieting, because for the first time in twenty years, the more ignorant of the Negroes were somewhat panic-stricken. Speaking of their fears, Douglass testified “to the painful apprehension and distress felt by my people in the South from the return to power of the old Democratic and slavery party. To many of them, it seemed that they were left naked to their enemies, in fact, lost; that Mr. Cleveland’s election meant the revival of the slave-power and that they would now again be reduced to slavery and the lash. The misery brought to the South by this wide-spread alarm can hardly be described or measured. The wail of despair for a time from the late bondsmen was deep, bitter and heart-rending.... It was well for the poor people in this condition that Mr. Cleveland himself sent word South to allay their fear and remove their agony.”

Mr. Douglass always cherished a very sincere admiration for President Cleveland, for this and other reasons, and regarded it as highly fortunate that a man so just and non-partisan should be elected as the first Democratic President after emancipation. As a result of his fair treatment, the American Negroes first learned that the term Democratic did not necessarily mean for them loss of rights and citizenship. In fact, his liberal policy caused a great many of the more intelligent colored men very seriously to consider the advisability of a division of the Negro vote between the two great parties. Men of the high standing of Archibald H. Grimké, of Boston, Mass., and W. M. E. Matthews, of New York, argued with great plausibility that one way to convince the American people of his qualifications for citizenship, would be for the Negro to learn to vote for principles rather than for party leaders. They insisted that to take the pith out of the Democratic opposition to his appearance in politics, a goodly portion of the voters should join themselves to that party. It was unfortunate that this tendency to political independence on the part of the enlightened colored men could not have been encouraged. However natural and human it may be for the Negro people to be allied wholly to one of two political parties, it is nevertheless a serious hindrance to the colored man’s political freedom that he must continue to regard the Republican party as composed wholly of his friends and the Democratic party as composed wholly of his enemies. Mr. Douglass openly confessed his inability to take this new stand in politics, notwithstanding his admiration for Mr. Cleveland and his respect for the motives of the few colored men in the country who were independent enough to break away from party control. Though he personally could not join the movement he regarded it as a sign of progress for colored men of character and intellect to say that they cared more for their race than for party, and more for their country than for their race.

The last public office held by Mr. Douglass under the United States government was that of Minister Resident and Consul General to the Republic of Hayti. This seemed a fitting climax to the long list of honors that came to him, not so much as a reward of party service as for his own high deserving. The appointment was made by President Harrison and was wholly unsought. Douglass had, of course, and as usual, taken an

## active part in the campaign of 1888. The tariff was the main subject of

contention and it was more than hinted to him that he was expected to make the most of this issue. He nevertheless had his own way, and everywhere he insisted that the paramount issue was the rights of men.

On the stump he was as popular as ever; on all sides he found the people deeply interested in his fervent pleas for justice to his race. Speaking of his efforts in the last political campaign in which he took a prominent part, he said: “I held that the soul of the nation was in this question and that the gain of all the gold in the world would not compensate for the loss of the national soul. National honor is the soul of the nation and when this is lost all is lost.... As with an individual, so with a nation. There is a time when it may be properly asked, What does it profit a nation to gain the whole world and lose its own soul?”

In accepting the honor of representing this country in Hayti Frederick Douglass was about to realize a long cherished wish,—an opportunity to see and study the only republic established and carried on by black men in the Western world. In some respects his appointment at another time would have been more agreeable. Very much to his surprise and chagrin, and for causes of which he was wholly innocent, it was bitterly opposed. Antagonism to him came almost wholly from the East and was confined to interests that were bent upon obtaining valuable concessions from Hayti. Certain New York newspapers tried to make it appear that he was unfitted for the place, and insisted that the people wanted a white man to represent the United States, although every representative from this government to Hayti since 1869 had been a colored man. It was also urged that Douglass would not be well received, because at one time he favored the annexation of San Domingo.

Even after his appointment was confirmed by the United States Senate, the opposition still pursued him. For example, it was said that the captain of the ship designated by the government to convey the new minister to Port-au-Prince, refused to take him on board because of his complexion; that after he arrived at the capital of Hayti he was snubbed by the officials for the same reason; and that it was found he had not been duly accredited.

In these statements there was scarcely a grain of truth. There was no insult to Mr. Douglass by the captain of the boat; there was no lack of cordiality and respect on the part of the Haytians on account of his color; and there was no embarrassment of any kind to warrant the peculiar and insistent opposition that followed him from the moment his appointment was announced. There were two issues of commanding interest at this time which made the position of our Minister to Port-au-Prince a trying one. First in importance was a desire on the part of the United States to secure by treaty, Môle St. Nicolas as a naval station; and, second, a desperate determination by the Clyde Steamship Company to obtain from the Haytian government a subsidy of a half-million dollars to ply a line of steamers between New York and Hayti.

As an evidence of the mean spirit of Mr. Douglass’s enemies, he was grossly misrepresented as being the cause of the failure of the United States to obtain the Môle. The great perversion of the real facts surrounding the diplomatic efforts on the part of the government to procure from Hayti the use of this port, led Mr. Douglass to publish in the _North American Review_ for September and October, 1891, a full history of his connection with the affair. In this interesting account of the negotiations carried on during his official residence in Hayti, it will be seen that he was in no way responsible for the result. In the first place, he was not vested with authority to arrange with Hayti for a United States naval station. He had been there as a representative of this government over one year before the matter was taken up. When the United States got ready to negotiate a treaty, the subject was entrusted wholly to a special agent in the person of Rear-Admiral Gherardi. Mr. Douglass’s only instructions were to coöperate with and assist the Admiral in every possible way. The news of the appointment of a special commissioner by the United States government was viewed by Mr. Douglass as “sudden and far from flattering.” It placed him in an unenviable light, both before the community of Port-au-Prince and the government of Hayti, and made his position very humble, secondary, and subordinate. He said: “The situation suggested the resignation of my office as due to my honor, but reflection soon convinced me that such a course would subject me to misconstruction more hurtful than any which, in the circumstances, could justly arise from remaining at my post.”

He cordially and energetically assisted Admiral Gherardi. He secured audiences with the President and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hayti, and did not allow anything like offended dignity to diminish his zeal and alacrity in carrying out his instructions.

In the conference, Mr. Douglass supplemented the arguments of the commissioner in an earnest appeal in behalf of the United States. He urged that the concession asked for by his government, “was in line with good neighborhood, and advanced civilization, and in every way consistent with Haytian autonomy; that such a concession would be a source of strength to Hayti; that national isolation was a worn-out policy, and that the true policy of Hayti ought to be to touch the world at all points that make for civilization and commerce.”

All arguments, however, failed to overcome the deep-seated suspicion of the Haytian people of any proposition to yield even one inch of their national dominion. While in Mr. Douglass’s opinion, the negotiations were ill-timed, being prejudiced by the previous demands of the agents of the Clyde Company, and by the apparent threat in the presence of a part of the United States Navy in the Haytian harbor, he yet gave it as his deliberate opinion that no earthly power outside of absolute force could have obtained for the American government a naval station at Môle St. Nicolas.

He also found that Hayti was somewhat suspicious of the United States on account of the national prejudice against the color of its citizens. While loyal to his own government, Mr. Douglass scarcely blamed them for this feeling. He believed in the future of the little republic, and said: “Whatever may happen of peace or war, Hayti will remain in the firmament of nations and like the north star will shine on, and shine forever.”

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