Strong to Suffer, and Yet Strong to Strive: An Address Delivered in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 1886
STRONG TO SUFFER, AND YET STRONG TO STRIVE:
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN WASHINGTON, D.C.,
ON 16 APRIL 1886
Washington , 17 April 1886. Other texts in Washington , 24 April
1886; New York , 1 May 1886; Speech File, reel 10, frames 347-55, reel 11,
frames 209-12, reel 16, frames 58-74, reel 20, frames 221, 226-28, FD Papers, DLC;
(Washington, D.C., 1886), 42-68; Foner, , 4: 430-42.
Unusual controversy surrounded the twenty-fourth celebration of emancipa-
tion in the District of Columbia. Early in 1886 two rival factions emerged
among local black leaders. Saloon keeper Perry Carson organized meetings to
protest the celebration plans of a group led by the editor of the Washington
Bee, William Calvin Chase. The Chase, or “regular,” faction had dominated
all previous celebrations and refused to incorporate the Carson, or
“People’s,” faction. Apparently Chase’s group hoped to organize a more
decorous parade than had been the case in earlier years. Seeking legitimacy,
each faction tried to obtain President Grover Cleveland’s blessing in the form
of an agreement to review its parade. Because of the schism, Cleveland
refused to review either procession. When last-minute negotiations failed to
effect a compromise, both groups sponsored parades through the streets of
Washington on 16 April 1886. Carson’s “people’s procession” was the larger
and ended at Lincoln Park with several orations. Participants in the smaller
regular procession gathered in the evening at the Israel Bethel Colored Meth-
odist Episcopal Church to hear speeches. Chaired by James M. Gregory, the
meeting began with Chase reading letters of regret from invited guests unable
to attend. Chase then read resolutions, including one condemning parades on
Emancipation Day. Gregory gave a short historical address describing the
emancipation movement before introducing Douglass. According to the
Washington National Republican, Douglass “was frequently interrupted dur-
ing the delivery of his oration by loud applause.” After Douglass’s address,
C. A. D. Armand and Arthur St. A. Smith, a printer, spoke, the resolutions
were adopted, and the meeting concluded. Democratic party newspapers,
such as the Boston , complained that Douglass had used the occasion to
encourage Republicans to “fight the campaign of 1888 on the issue of the
bloody shirt.” Typical of the many letters Douglass received praising the
speech was the assertion of Robert Harlan of Ohio that the oration’s “origi-
nality, depth of thought and beauty of language stamp it as worthy of the great
leader of the colored race in this country.” William H. H. Hart to Douglass, 17
April 1886, Robert Harlan to Douglass, 26 April 1886, John P. Green to
Douglass, 22 April 1886, T[imothy] Thomas Fortune to Douglass, 20 April
1886, Judson W. Lyons to Douglass, 22 April 1886, John W. Ewing to
Douglass, 19 April 1886, General Correspondence File, reel 4, frames 314-
15, 320-21, 326, 327, 327-28, 331, FD Papers, DLC; Washington , 20,
27 February, 13, 27 March, 10, 17, 24 April 1886; Washington , 16 March 1886; New York , 3 April 1886; Washington
, l6, 17 April 1886; Washington , 17 April 1886; Cleveland
, 24 April, 8 May 1886; Boston , 24 May 1886.
FRIENDS AND FELLOW—CITIZENS: I appear before you again, and for the
third time since my residence among you, to assist in the celebration of the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.1Although Douglass moved to Washington, D.C., at the time of his assumption of control of the , he maintained his residence in Rochester, New York, until the time of its destruction by fire on 3 June 1872. Douglass had previously addressed Emancipation Day celebrations in Washington, D.C., in 1883 and 1885. Douglass, , 294-95; Quarles, , 268. And while I highly
appreciate the honor and the confidence implied in your call upon me to do
so, when I consider the importance of the task it has imposed, I can say in
all sincerity, as I have said before, that I wish that your choice of speaker
had fallen upon one of our young men, quite as well qualified to serve you
as myself. I want to see them coming to the front as lam retiring to the rear.
Then the fact that l have several times addressed you upon subjects natu-
rally suggested by the recurrence of this interesting anniversary is, of itself,
somewhat embarrassing. It is not an easy task to speak many times on the
same subject, before the same audience, without repeating the same views
and sentiments. If, therefore, you find me committing this offense to-day,
you will consider the difficulty of avoiding it, and also that the same views
and sentiments are as pertinent and necessary to-day as years ago. You
need not fear, however, that I shall inflict upon you any one of my former
orations. I am not bound by any such necessity. The field is broad, and the
material is abundant. The phases of public affairs touching the colored
people of the United States are never stationary. They change with every
season, and often many times in the course of a single year. There is no
standing still for anybody in this world. We are either rising or falling,
advancing or retreating.
Last year, at this time, we were confronted with an unusual and some-
what alarming state of facts. We stood at the gateway of a new and strange
administration.2The first administration of President Grover Cleveland began on 4 March 1885. After wandering about during twenty-four years, seeking
rest and finding none, often hungry and sometimes thirsty, and, though not
feeding swine or eating husks, yet not infrequently found in very low
places and wasting the substance of the national family—our prodigal
Democratic son,3An allusion to the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15: 11-32. with one tremendous effort of will, returned to the white
house, and was received with every demonstration of parental joy and
gladness. Of course this did not take place without a murmur of complaint
and disapproval. There was an elder brother here as elsewhere; one who
had remained at home, worked the old farm, kept the fences in repair; one
who had done his duty and made things in the old house comfortable and
pleasant generally. Indeed, but for his elder brother, the Republican party,
the house would have been broken up, the whole family turned out of doors
and scattered in poverty and destitution. It was natural, therefore, when
this elder brother saw the great doings at the white house one year ago,
when he heard the music and saw the dancing, and learned what it was all
about, he was not over-well pleased, and thought his father not only soft-
hearted, but a little soft-headed, and a trifle ungrateful, if not crazy withal.
But elder brothers, you know, are usually reasonable and patient, and are
generally quite submissive to parental authority, and though he knew the
bad character of the young truant who had now come home, he hoped he
had reformed. How far this cheerful and patient hope has been justified by
one year of this administration I will not now stop to say; I may, however,
remark, as a prelude to what I shall hereafter say, that as far as the colored
people of the country are concerned, their condition seems no better and
not much worse than under previous administrations. Lynch law, violence,
and murder have gone on about the same as formerly, and without the least
show of federal interference or popular rebuke. The constitution has been
openly violated with the usual impunity, and the colored vote has been as
completely nullified, suppressed, and scouted as if the fifteenth amend-
ment formed no part of the constitution, and as if every colored citizen of
the south had been struck dead by lightning or blown to atoms by dynamite.
There have also been the usual number of outrages committed against the
civil rights of colored citizens on highways and byways, by land and by
water, and the courts of the country, under the decision of the Supreme
Court of the United States,4Douglass alludes to the 15 October 1883 decision of the United States Supreme Court, which overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875 as unconstitutional. 109 U.S. 3 (1883), 8-26. have shown the same disposition to punish the
innocent and shield the guilty, as during the Presidency of Mr. Arthur.5Vice President Chester Alan Arthur (1830-86) succeeded to the presidency upon the death of James A. Garfield on 19 September 1881 and completed the remaining three and a half years of his term.
Perhaps colored men have fared a little worse, so far as office-holding is
concerned. In some of the departments, I am sorry to say, there have been
many dismissals, but, even in this respect, colored men have not suffered
much more than one-armed soldiers, and other loyal white men, whose
places were wanted by deserving Democrats. Upon the whole, candor
compels me to admit that this twenty-fourth year of our freedom finds us
thoughtful, somewhat mystified by what is passing around us, but hopeful,
strong to suffer, and yet strong to strive, with a moderate degree of faith
that, under the constitution and its amendments, we shall yet be clothed
with dignity of freedom and American citizenship. But more of this in the
right place.
I take it that no apology is needed for these annual celebrations, for,
notwithstanding the unfriendly outlook of affairs, we have yet much over
which to rejoice. Besides, such demonstrations of popular feeling in regard
to large benefits received, and progress made, are consistent with and
creditable to human nature. They have been observed all along the line of
by gone ages, and are peculiar to no class, clime, race, or color. From the
day that Moses is said to have smote the Red Sea and the Hebrews passed
safely over from Egyptian bondage, leaving Pharaoh overwhelmed and
struggling with that hell of waters,6Exod. 14: 21-30. down to the 4th of July, 1776, when the
fathers of this republic threw off the British yoke, declared their indepen-
dence, and appealed to the god of battles, similar events to that which we
now celebrate have been gratefully and joyfully commemorated.
If, for any reason I feel like apologizing to-day, it is not for this
celebration, but for an incident connected with it, and by which it is greatly
marred. For the first time since the emancipation of the slaves of the
District of Columbia, we have two celebrations in progress at the same
time. This should not be so. By this fact we have said to the world that we
are not sufficiently united as a people to celebrate our freedom together.
This spectacle of division among men working for a common cause is not
pleasing in any case, and is especially displeasing and shocking in this
instance. Without attempting to show which party is to blame in this
controversy, I have no hesitation in saying that this division itself is most
unfortunate, disgraceful, and mortifying. It cannot fail, I fear, to make an
unfavorable impression for us upon thoughtful observers. But, standing
here as your mouth-piece to-day, I beg the disgusted public to remember
that colored men are but men, and that the best men will sometimes differ,
and will often differ more widely and violently about trifles than about
things of substance, where a difference of opinion would be at least digni-
fied. Something must, however, be pardoned to the spirit of liberty, es-
pecially in those who have but recently acquired liberty. There is always
some awkwardness in the gait of men who, for the first time, have on their
Sunday clothes. When we have enjoyed the blessings of liberty longer we
shall put away such childish things and shall act more wisely.7A paraphrase of 1 Cor. 13: 11. We shall
think more of a common cause and its requirements and less of obligation
to support the claims of rival individual leaders. Depend upon it, a repeti-
tion of this spectacle will bring our celebrations into disgrace and make
them despicable.
The thought is already gaining ground, that we have not heretofore
received the best influence, which this anniversary is capable of exerting;
that tinsel show, gaudy display, and straggling processions, which empty
the alleys and dark places of our city into the broad daylight of our thronged
streets and avenues, thus thrusting upon the public view a vastly undue
proportion of the most unfortunate, unimproved, and unprogressive class
of the colored people, and thereby inviting public disgust and contempt,
and repelling the most thrifty and self-respecting among us, is a positive
hurt to the whole colored population of this city. These annual celebrations
of ours should be so arranged as to make a favorable impression for us upon
ourselves and upon our fellow-citizens. They should bring into notice the
very best elements of our colored population, and in what is said and done
on these occasions, we should find a deeper and broader comprehension of
our relations and duties. They should kindle in us higher hopes, nobler
aspirations, and stimulate us to more earnest endeavors; they should help us
to shorten the distance between ourselves and the more highly advanced
and highly favored people among whom we are. If they fail to produce, in
some measure, such results, they had better be discontinued. I am sure that
such a lecture as l have now given on this point may be distasteful to a pan
of this assembly. But I can say, in all truth, that nothing short of a profound
desire to promote the best interests of all concerned, has emboldened me to
run the risk of such displeasure, and l hope the motive will excuse my
offence.
And now, fellow citizens, I turn away from this and other merely race
considerations, to those common to all our fellow citizens, yet happily
those in which we too are included. I call attention to the proposed celebra-
tion of the centennial anniversary of our present form of government.8Washington buzzed with discussion about the possibility of raising popular and congressional support for a Permanent Exposition of the Three Americas where the nation could celebrate the centennial of the Constitution and the quadricentennial of Christopher Columbus's discovery of the American continents. Washingtonians who believed that such an exposition would greatly benefit local business met frequently at the Willard Hotel in early 1883. Douglass sometimes joined these discussions of strategies to win the honor away from other possible host cities. Washington , 26, 27 February, 3, 12, 15 March, 3, 5, 7, 12 April 1886; Washington , 26 February 1886. The
year 1789 will never cease to be memorable in the history and progress of
the American people. It was in that year of grace that the founders of the
American republic, having tested the strength and discovered the weakness
of the old articles of colonial confederation, bravely decided to lay those
articles aside as no longer adequate to successful and permanent national
existence, and resolved to form a new compact and adopt a new constitu-
tion, better suited, in their judgment, to their national character and to their
governmental wants. In this instrument they set forth six definite and
cardinal objects to be attained by this new departure. These were: First.
“To form a more perfect union.” Second. “To establish justice.” Third.
“To provide for the common defense.” Fourth. “To insure domestic tranquility."
Fifth. “To promote a general welfare.” And sixth. “Secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”9Douglass quotes portions of the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps there never
was an instrument framed by men at the beginning of any national career
designed to accomplish nobler objects than those set forth in the preamble
of this constitution. They are objects worthy of a great nation, worthy of
those who gave to the world the immortal declaration of independence, in
which they asserted the equal rights of man, and boldly declared in the face
of all the divine right governments of Europe the doctrine that governments
derive their right to govern from the consent of the governed.
How far these fundamental objects, solemnly set forth in the constitu-
tion, have been realized by the practical operation of the government
created under it, I will not stop just now to state or explain. Whether the
Union has been perfectly formed, whether under the aegis of the constitu-
tion the sacred principle of justice has been established, whether the gener-
al welfare has been promoted, or whether the blessings of liberty have been
secured, are questions to which reference may be made in a subsequent part
of this address. For the present I refer to this grand starting point in the
nation’s history for another purpose, I wish simply to remind you of the
flight of time, that we are now drawing near the close of the first century of
our national existence, and the notice that should be taken of that fact.
Without going into the general questions raised a moment ago, as to the
fulfillment of what was promised in the constitution, we may, in passing,
affirm what must be admitted by all, that under this form of government so
happily described, and so faithfully upheld by the great and lamented
Abraham Lincoln, as “government of the people, by the people, and for
the people,”10Douglass paraphrases the concluding sentence of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Basler, , 7: 23. this nation has become rich, great, progressive and strong.
This fact cheerfully acknowledged by the whole sisterhood of contempo-
raneous nations. From thirteen comparatively weak and sparsely populated
states, skirting and hovering along the line of our Atlantic coast, constitut-
ing a mere string of isolated communities, we now have thirty—eight states
covering our broad continent, extending from east to west, and from sea to
sea. Under our constitution the desert and solitary places have been re-
claimed and made to blossom as the rose.11Douglass adapts Isa. 35: 1. From a population of seven
millions, we have reached the enormous number of fifty millions; and in
less than half a century we shall have double that number. Such an augmentation
of wealth, power and population has no example in the experience of
any nation in ancient or modern times. The mind grows dizzy in con-
templation on the future of a country so great and so increasing in great-
ness, and to whose greatness there seems to be no limit. The question
naturally arises, what is to be the effect of such accumulated wealth, such
vast increase of population, such expanded domain, and such augmenta-
tion of national power. Plainly enough either one of two very opposite
conditions may arise. It may either blast or bless, it may lift us to Heaven,
or sink us to perdition.
If we shall become proud, selfish, imperious. oppressive, and rapa-
cious; if we shall persist in trampling on the weak and exalting the strong,
worshiping the rich and despising the poor, our doom as a nation is already
foreshadowed.
That Almighty Power recognized in one form or another by all
thoughtful men; that Almighty Power which controls every atom of the
earth, and governs the universe; that Almighty Power which stood and
measured the globe, which beheld and drove asunder the nations, will
surely deal with us in the future, as that power has dealt in the past with
other wicked nations—it will bring us to dust and ashes. The rule of life for
individuals and for nations is the same. Neither can escape the conse-
quences of transgression. As they sow, so shall they reap.12A close paraphrase of Gal. 6: 7. There is no
salvation for either outside of a life of truth and justice. Contradiction to
this in theory, for either individuals or nations, is a damning heresy; and
contradiction to this in practice is certain destruction.
Large and imposing plans are just now proposed, and are maturing, for
the appropriate celebration of this first centennial year of our national life.
If these plans should be perfected and executed, as they probably will be,
and as they certainly should be, Washington will witness a demonstration
in this line far transcending in grandeur and sublimity the centennial ex-
position in the city of Philadelphia ten years ago.
These celebrations, like our own, have large uses. They serve as lofty
pedestals or platforms from which the national patriotism and intelligence
may survey the past, and, in some sense, penetrate and divine the national
future.
It is also fit and proper that our young and beautiful city of Washington
should be the theater of such a grand national centennial demonstration. It
is the capital of the nation, and is, in some sense, the shining sun of our
national system, around which our thirty-eight states, linked and in-
terlinked in one unbroken national interest, revolve in union. Upon this
spot no one citizen has more rights than another. The right to be here is
vested in all alike. Distance does not diminish or alienate, contiguity does
not increase any man’s right on this soil. In this capital of the nation
California is equal to Virginia, and, as Webster said of Bunker Hill,
“Wherever else we may be strangers, we are all at home here.”13A paraphrase of a line from Daniel Webster's speech at the celebration of the completion of the Bunker Hill monument on 17 June 1843. , 1: 265.
As part of the people of this great country, we may feel ourselves
included. We represent the class which has enriched our soil with its blood,
watered it with its tears, and defended it with its strong arms, but have
hitherto been excluded from all part in our national glory. Now, however,
all is changed. We may look forward with pleasure to the promised Na-
tional Centennial Exposition, and take some credit to ourselves for helping
to make the District of Columbia a suitable place for such a display. We
have at least done a large proportion of the most laborious and needed work
to this end.
The wisdom of the framers of the constitution of the United States in
granting to the nation, through its Congress, exclusive legislative jurisdic-
tion over the District of Columbia,14Douglass alludes to Article 1, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution. has in nothing been more abundantly
and happily vindicated than in the abolition of slavery, and in making it the
freest territory of this country. The benefits of this act are, however, not
confined to the colored people. They are shared by all the people of this
District; not more by the colored than by the white people.
Washington owes nothing to Maryland or Virginia (though born of
those parents) in comparison to its debt to the nation. Through the national
government it has become the elegant and beautiful city that it is. It is the
nation that has graded and paved its broad and far-reaching streets and
avenues; it is the nation that has fenced and beautified its numerous parks
and reservations, and made them the joy of our children, and the admira-
tion of our visitors; it is the nation that has adorned its ample public squares
and circles with choice flowers, flowing fountains, and imposing statuary;
it is the nation that has erected enduring monuments of bronze and marble
in honor of our statesmen, warriors, patriots, and heroes; it is the nation
that has built here those vast structures, the different departments, and
crowned yonder hill with a capitol, one of the proudest architectural wonders
of the world; it is the nation that has built Washington monument, the
pride of the city, the tallest structure that ever rose from the ground toward
heaven at the bidding of human pride, patriotism, or piety;15Described by the press as “the highest structure of human hands," the height of the Washington monument at its 1885 dedication measured 555 feet and 5⅛; inches from base to capstone. Washington , 7 December 1884; , 777, 798-99. standing there
in full view of all comers, whether approaching [by] land or water, with its
base deep down in the earth, and its capstone against the sky, receiving and
reflecting every light and shadow of the passing hour, steady alike in
sunshine and storm, defying lightning, whirlwind, and earthquake, its
grandeur and sublimity, like Niagara, impress us more and more the longer
we hold it in range of vision.
But the nation, as I have already said, has done more for the District of
Columbia than to clothe it with material greatness and splendor. It has by
the act of emancipation imparted to it a moral beauty. It has not only made it
a pleasure to the eye, but a joy to the heart. No material adornment or
addition has ever done or could do for this District what the abolition of
slavery has done. The nation did a great and good thing fifteen years ago by
giving us a local government and a Shepherd16District of Columbia native Alexander Robey Shepherd (1835- 1902) was a businessman before beginning his career in city politics with election to the city council (1861-64) and appointment to the levy court (1867-71). As chairman of the Citizens' Reform Association, Shepherd was instrumental in lobbying for the federal legislation that created a territorial government for the District of Columbia in 1871. After President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Shepherd vice president of the new Board of Public Works, he oversaw a massive program of urban improvements that forever changed the face of the District of Columbia and earned him the nickname “Boss Shepherd." Charges of fraud and mismanagement, however, elicited congressional scrutiny so that a year after Shepherd's 1873 appointment as governor, Congress abolished the territorial government and rejected his nomination as one of the commissioners of the succeeding district government. Shepherd emigrated to Batopilas, Mexico, in 1880 where he engaged in a successful silver mining business until his death. William M. Maury, , GW Washington Studies, No. 3 (Washington, 1975); William Tindall, “A Sketch of Alexander Robey Shepherd," , 14: 48-66 (1914); , 91-92; , 13: 80-81; , 17: 77-78. that lifted the city out of its
deep mud and above its blinding dust, and put it on the way to its present
greatness, but it did a greater and better thing when it lifted it out of the mire
of barbarism coincident with slavery.
Fellow-citizens, we are proud to-day, and justly proud, of the pros-
perity and the increasing liberality of Washington. With all our fellow-
citizens we behold it with pride and pleasure rising and spreading noise-
lessly around us, almost like the temple of Solomon, without the sound of a
hammer.171 Kings 6: 7. New faces meet us at the comers of the streets and greet us in the
market places. Conveniences and improvements are multiplying on every
hand. We walk in the shade of its beautiful trees by day and in the rays of its
soft electric light by night. We make it warm where it is cool, and cool
where it is warm, and healthy where it is noxious. Our magnificence fills
the stranger and sojourner with admiration and wonder. The contrast be-
tween the old time of slavery and the new dispensation of liberty looms
upon us on every hand. We feel it in the very air we breathe, and in the
friendly aspect of all around us. But time would fail to tell of the vast and
wonderful advancement in civilization made in this city by the abolition of
slavery.
Perhaps a better idea could be formed of what has been done for
Washington and for us, by imagining what would be the case in a return to
the old condition of things. Imagine the wheels of progress reversed;
imagine that by some strange and mysterious freak of fortune, slavery with
all its horrid concomitants was revived; imagine that under the dome of
yonder capitol legislation was carried on, as formerly, by men with pistols
in their belts and bullets in their pockets; imagine the right of speech
denied, the right of petition stamped out, the press of the District muzzled,
and a word in the streets against slavery, the sign for a mob; imagine a lone
woman like Miss Myrtilla Miner,18The daughter of a central New York state farmer, Myrtilla Miner (1815-64) attended the Female Domestic Seminary in Clinton, New York, and the Clover Street Seminary in Rochester, New York. She then taught in a number of locations including Whitesville, Mississippi, where she witnessed slavery at first hand. In 1851 Miner opened what became the first normal school for black women in the District of Columbia. Although philanthropic support grew with the school's attendance, Miner‘s success elicited local hostility. Miner practiced with a pistol on the school’s grounds to frighten off potential attackers; in at least one instance she had to challenge such intruders, gun-in-hand. Ill health forced Miner to close her school in 1860 but efforts to revive it began when Congress incorporated the school as the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth in 1863. This institution, renamed the Miner Normal School, functioned irregularly until 1879 when it became part of the public school system of the District of Columbia. G. Smith Wormley, “Myrtilla Miner," , 5: 448-57 (October 1920); Lester Grosvenor Wells, “Myrtilla Miner," , 24: 358-75 (July I943); E[llen] M. O'Connor, (Boston, 1885); , 4: 336; , 12: 185; , 13: 23-24. having to defend her right to teach
colored girls to read and write, with a pistol in her hand, here, in this very
city, now dotted all over with colored schools, which rival in magnificence
the white schools of any other city of the Union; imagine this, and more,
and ask yourselves the question. What progress has been made in liberty
and civilization within the borders of this capital? Further on let us ask, Of
what avail would be our cloud capped towers,19Tempest. act 4, sc. 1. line 152. our gorgeous palaces, and
our solemn temples if slavery again held sway here? Of what avail would be
our marble halls if once more they resounded with the crack of the slave
whip, the clank of the fetter, and the rattle of chains; if slave auctions were
held in front of the halls of justice, and chaingangs were marched over
Pennsylvania avenue to the Long Bridge20The Long Bridge, which crossed the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., was first built in 1809 and replaced in 1835 after a flood destroyed the original structure. Henry Grattan Tyrrell, (Chicago, 1911), 134-35. for the New Orleans market? Of
what avail would be our state dinners, our splendid receptions if, like
Babylon of old, our people were making merchandise of God’s image,
trafficking in human blood and in the souls and bodies of men?21A loose allusion to events described in Dan. 1-5. Were this
District once more covered with this moral blight and mildew you would
hear of no plans, as now, for celebrating within its borders the centennial
anniversary of the adoption of the constitution of the United States. Bold
and audacious as were the advocates of slavery in the olden time they would
have been ashamed to invite here the representatives of the civilized world
to inspect the workings of their slave system. To have done so would have
been like inviting a clean man to touch pitch, a human man to witness an
execution. a tender-hearted woman to witness a slaughter. In its boldest
days slavery drew in its claws and presented a velvet paw to strangers. They
knew it was like Lord Granby’s character,22John Manners, Marquis of Granby. which could only pass without
reprobation as it passed without observation. Emancipation liberated the
master as well as the slave. The fact that our citizens are now loudly
proclaiming Washington to be the right place for the celebration of the
discovery of the continent by Columbus and the adoption of the constitu-
tion of the United States is an acknowledgment and an attestation of the
higher civilization that has, in their judgment, come here with the abolition
of slavery. They no longer dread the gaze of civilized men. They no longer
fear lest a word of liberty should fall into the ear of a trembling captive and
awaken his manhood. They are no longer required to defend with their lips
what they must have condemned in their hearts. When the galling chain
dropped from the limbs of the slave the mantle of shame dropped from the
brows of their masters. The emancipation of the one was the deliverance of
the other; so that this day, in fact, belongs to the one as truly as it belongs to
the other, though it is left to us alone to keep it in memory.
It is usual on occasions of this kind, not only to set forth, as I have in
some measure done, what has been gained by the abolition of slavery, but
also to speak of the causes and instrumentalities which contributed to this
grand result. If this were my first appearance before you on similar anniver-
saries, I should feel it entirely proper to do so now, but having discharged
this duty faithfully and fully in several former addresses there is no special
reason for a repetition of it in this instance. In one of those addresses, I
specially endeavored to trace, and did trace with more or less success, the
history of the earliest utterances of anti-slavery sentiments in this country
and in England. I described the rise, progress, and final triumph of the
abolition movement in both countries. I have in no case omitted to do
justice to the noble band of men and women who espoused the cause of the
slave in the early days of its weakness, and when to do so was to make
themselves of no reputation and subjects of the vilest abuse. I have held up
their example of virtuous self-sacrifice to the admiration and imitation of
all who would serve the human family in its march from barbarism to a
higher state of civilization. In my judgment there never was a band of
reformers more unselfish, more consistent with their principles, more
ardent in their devotion to any cause than were these early anti-slavery men
and women of this country.
The charge is sometimes made that the colored people are ungrateful to
their benefactors. In my judgment no charge could be more unjust. In
whatever else they have failed they have ever shown a laudable sense of
gratitude. The names of William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, John P.
Hale, Charles Sumner, Gerrit Smith, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant,
and a host of others are never pronounced by us but with sentiments of high
appreciation and sincere gratitude.
Of course, I cannot deny that there are those amongst us, who, either
thoughtlessly or selfishly, or both, dare to deny their obligations to the
great Republican party and its leaders. They insist upon it that freedom
came to them only as an act of military necessity. They see in it no senti-
ment of justice, no moral preference. They profess to see no difference
between the Republican party and the Democratic party, and insist that one
party has no more claim to their support than the other. Such men are about
as ready to join one party as the other. Perhaps they even lean a little more
to the Democratic than to the Republican party. I admit that were they fair
representatives of the colored people of the United States the charge of
ingratitude might be very easily sustained. But, happily, such men do not
represent the sentiments of the colored people, but greatly and flagrantly
misrepresent them. The colored people do see a difference between the two
parties, as broad as the moral universe, and as palpable as the difference
between the character of Moses and that of Pharaoh. For one I never will
forget that every concession of liberty made to the colored people of the
United States has come to them through the action of the Republican party,
and that all the opposition made to those concessions has come from the
Democratic party. Any colored man who either denies this or endeavors to
disparage that party and belittle their concessions by attributing them en-
tirely to selfish and cowardly motives brands himself as unjust, uncharita-
ble, and ungrateful. The blindness of such men is very surprising. Do they
not see that in denying their obligations to the Republican party they only
invite the scorn and contempt of the Democratic party? Do they not under-
stand that they are advertising themselves as base political ingrates? Do
they not know that they are giving notice to the Democratic party—the
party that they are just now aiming to conciliate—that they will be as unjust
and ungrateful to that party for any concessions from it as they declare
themselves to be to the Republican party for what that party has done?
But, fellow-citizens, while I gratefully remember the important ser-
vices of the Republican party in emancipating and enfranchising the col-
ored people of the United States, I do not forget that the work of that party
is most sadly incomplete. We are yet, as a people, only half free. The
promise of liberty remains unfulfilled. We stand to-day only in the twilight
of American liberty. The sunbeams of perfect day are still behind the
mountains, and the mission of the Republican party will not be ended until
the persons, the property, and the ballot of the colored man shall be as well
protected in every state of the American Union as are such rights in the case
of the white man. The Republican party is not perfect. It is cautious even to
the point of timidity; but it is, nevertheless, the best political force and
friend we have.
And now I return to the point at which I commenced these remarks. I
have spoken to you of the adoption of the constitution of the United States
and of the national progress and prosperity under that instrument; I have
called your attention to the noble objects announced in the preamble of the
constitution. I did not stop then and there to inquire how far those objects,
so solemnly proclaimed to the world and so often sworn to, have been
attained, or to point out how far they have been practically disregarded and
abandoned by the government ordained to practically carry them out. I now
undertake to say that neither the constitution of 1789 nor the constitution as
amended since the war is the law of the land. That constitution has been
slain in the house of its friends.23Douglass adapts Zech. 13: 6. So far as the colored people of the country
are concerned, the constitution is but a stupendous sham, a rope of sand,24Douglass quotes a metaphor traceable to Erasmus's (1500). , 42 vols. trans. Margaret Mann Phillips (Toronto, 1974-82), 31: 371.
a Dead sea apple, fair without and foul within, keeping the promise to the
eye and breaking it to the heart.25Douglass loosely paraphrases , act 5, sc. 7, lines 50-51. The federal government, so far as we are
concerned, has abdicated its functions and abandoned the objects for which
the constitution was framed and adopted, and for this I arraign it at the bar
of public opinion, both of our own country and that of the civilized world. I
am here to tell the truth and to tell it without fear or favor, and the truth is
that neither the Republican party nor the Democratic party has yet com-
plied with the solemn oath, taken by their respective representatives, to
support the Constitution, and execute the laws enacted under its provi-
sions. They have promised us law, and abandoned us to anarchy; they have
promised protection and given us violence; they have promised us fish and
given us a serpent.26Douglass adapts Matt. 7: 10. A vital and fundamental object which they have sworn
to realize to the best of their ability, is the establishment of justice. This is
one of the six fundamental objects for which the constitution was ordained;
but when, where, and how has any attempt been made by the federal
government to enforce or establish justice in any one of the late slavehold-
ing states. Has any one of our Republican Presidents, since Grant, earnest-
ly endeavored to establish justice in the south? According to the highest
legal authorities, justice is the perpetual disposition to secure to every man,
by due process of law, protection to his person, his property, and his
political rights. “Due process of law” has a definite and legal meaning. It
means the right to be tried in open court by a jury of one’s peers, and before
an impartial judge. It means that the accused shall be brought face to face
with his accusers; that he shall be allowed to call witnesses in his defense,
and that he shall have the assistance of counsel; it means that, preceding his
trial, he shall be safe in the custody of the government and that no harm
shall come to him for any alleged offense till he is fairly tried, convicted,
and sentenced by the court. This protection is given to the vilest white
criminal in the land. He cannot be convicted while there is even a reason-
able doubt in the minds of the jury as to his guilt. But to the colored man
accused of crime in the southern states, a different rule is almost every-
where applied. With him, to be accused is to be convicted. The court in
which he is tried is a lynching mob. This mob takes the place of “due
process of law,” of judge, jury, witness, and counsel. It does not come to
ascertain the guilt or innocence of the accused, but to hang, shoot, stab,
burn, or whip him to death. Neither courts, jails, nor marshals are allowed
to protect him. Everyday brings us tidings of these outrages. I will not stop
to detail individual instances. Their name is legion.27A paraphrase of Mark 5: 9 and Luke 8: 30. Everybody knows
that what I say is true, and that no power is employed by the government to
prevent this lawless violence. Yet our chief magistrates and other officers,
Democratic and Republican, continue to go through the solemn mockery,
the empty form of swearing by the name of Almighty God that they will
execute the laws and the constitution; that they will establish justice, insure
domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to
our posterity.
Only a few weeks ago, at Carrolton court house, Mississippi, in the
absence of all political excitement, while the government of the nation, as
well as the government of the southern states, was safely in the hands of the
Democratic party, when there was no pending election, and no pretense of
a fear of possible negro supremacy, one hundred white citizens, on horse-
back, armed to the teeth, deliberately assembled and in cold blood opened
a deadly fire upon a party of peaceable, unarmed colored men, killing
eleven of them on the spot, and mortally wounding nine others, most of
whom have since died.28Douglass refers to an incident at Carrollton, the county seat of Carroll County, Mississippi, on 17 March 1886. A mob of whites, variously estimated as numbering from fifty to one hundred, attacked the court house in Carrollton in an attempt to lynch three blacks being tried for the attempted murder of a white lawyer. Anywhere from thirteen to twenty blacks died in the grizzly massacre, but state authorities turned down appeals for an inquest. Washington , 19 March 1886; Washington , 18, 21 March 1886; New York , 18, 19 March 1886. The sad thing is, that, in the average American
mind, horrors of this character have become so frequent since the
slaveholding rebellion, that they excite neither shame nor surprise; neither
pity for the slain, nor indignation for the slayers. It is the old story verified.
“Vice is a monster of such frightful mien,
That to be hated, needs but to be seen,
But seen too oft, familiar with its face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”29Douglass slightly misquotes Alexander Pope, , Epistle II, lines 217-20.
It is said that those who live on the banks of Niagara neither hear its
thunder nor shudder at its overwhelming power. In any other country such
a frightful crime as the Carrolton massacre—in any other country than this
a scream would have gone up from all quarters of the land for the arrest and
punishment of these cold-blooded murderers; but alas! nothing like this has
happened here. We are used to the shedding of innocent blood, and the
heart of this nation is torpid, if not dead, to the natural claims of justice and
humanity, where the victims are of the colored race. Where are the sworn
ministers of the law? Where are the guardians of public justice? Where are
the defenders of the constitution? What hand in House or Senate, what
voice in court or Cabinet is uplifted to stay this tide of violence, blood, and
barbarism? Neither governors, Presidents, nor statesmen have yet declared
that these barbarities shall be stopped. On the contrary, they all confess
themselves powerless to protect our class; and thus you and l and all of us
are struck down, and bloody treason flourishes over us. In view of this
confessed impotency of the government and this apparent insensibility of
the nation to the claims of humanity, do you ask me why I expend my time
and breath in denouncing these wholesale murders when there is no seem-
ing prospect of a favorable response? I answer in turn, how can I, how can
you, how can any man with a heart in his breast do otherwise when, louder
than the blood of Abel, the blood of his fellow man cries from the
ground?30A paraphrase of Gen. 4: 10.
“Shall tongues be mute when deeds are wrought:
Which well might shame extremest hell,
Shall freemen lock the indignant thought,
Shall mercy’s bosom cease to swell;
Shall honor bleed, shall truth succumb,
Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?
By all around, above, below,
Be ours the indignant answer, No!”31Douglass quotes lines from the fifth and seventh stanzas of John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem, “Stanzas for the Times." , 3: 36.
In a former address delivered on the occasion of this anniversary I was
at the pains of showing that much of the crime attributed to colored people,
and for which they were held responsible, imprisoned, and murdered, was
in fact committed by white men disguised as negroes. I affirmed that all
presumptions in courts of law and in the community were against the
negro, and that color was the safest disguise a white man could assume in
which to commit crime; that all he had to do to commit the worst crimes
with impunity was to blacken his face and take on the similitude of a negro,
but even this disguise sometimes fails. Only a few days ago a Mr. J. H.
Justis, an eminent citizen of Granger County, Tenn., attempted under this
disguise to commit a cunningly devised robbery and have his offense fixed
upon a negro. All worked well till a bullet brought him to the ground and a
little soap and water was applied to his face, when he was found to be no
negro at all, but a very respectable white citizen.
Dark, desperate, and forlorn as I have described the situation, the
reality exceeds the description. In most of the gulf states, and in some parts
of the border states, I have sometimes thought that we should be about as
well situated for the purposes of justice, if there were no constitution of the
United States at all; as well off if there were no law, or lawmakers, no
constables, no jails, no court of justice, and we were left entirely without
the pretence of legal protection, for we are now at the mercy of midnight
raiders, assassins, and murderers, and we should only be in the same
condition if these pretended safeguards were abandoned. They now only
mock us. Other men are presumed to be innocent until they are proved
guilty. We are presumed to be guilty until we are proved to be innocent.
The charge is often made that negroes are by nature the criminal class
of America, that they furnish a larger proportion of petty thieves than any
other class. I admit the charge, but deny that nature, race, or color has
anything to do with the fact. Any other race with the same antecedents and
the same condition would show a similar thieving propensity.
The American people have this lesson to learn: That where justice is
denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where
any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to
oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. I
deny that nature has made the negro a thief or a burglar. Look at these black
criminals as they are brought into your police courts; view and study their
faces, their forms and their features, as I have done for years as marshal of
this District,32Douglass served as federal marshal of the District of Columbia from 1877 to 1881. and you will see that their antecedents are written all over
them. Two hundred and fifty years of grinding slavery has done its work
upon them. They stand before you to-day physically and mentally maimed
and mutilated men. Many of their mothers and grandmothers were lashed
to agony before their birth by cruel overseers, and the children have inher-
ited in their faces the anguish and resentment felt by their parents. Many of
these poor creatures have not been free long enough to outgrow the marks
of the lash on their backs, and the deeper marks on their souls, No, no! It is
not nature that has erred in making the negro. That shame rests with
slavery. It has twisted his limbs, deformed his body, flattened his feet, and
distorted his features, and made him, though black, no longer comely. In
infancy he slept on the cold clay floor of his cabin, with quick circulation
on one side, and tardy circulation on the other. So that he has grown up
unequal, unsymmetrical, and is no longer a vertical, well-rounded man, in
body or in mind. Time, education, and training will restore him to natural
proportions, for, though bruised and blasted, he is yet a man.
The school of the negro since leaving slavery has not been much of an
improvement on his former condition. Individuals of the race have here and
there enjoyed large benefits from emancipation, and the result is seen in
their conduct, but the mass have had their liberty coupled with hardships
which tend strongly to keep them a dwarfed and miserable class. A man
who labors ten hours a day with pickax, crowbar, and shovel, and has a
family to support and house rent to pay, and receives for his work but a
dollar a day, and what is worse still, he is deprived of labor a large part of
his time by reason of sickness and the weather, in his poverty, easily falls
before the temptation to steal and rob. Hungry men will eat. Desperate men
will commit crime, outraged men will seek revenge. It is said to be hard for
a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.33Douglass alludes to Matt. 19: 23-24, Mark 10: 24-25, and Luke 18: 24-25. I have sometimes thought it
harder still for a poor man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Man is so
constituted that if he cannot get a living honestly, he will get it dishonestly.
“Skin for skin,” as the devil said of Job. “All that a man hath will he give
for his life.”34Job 2: 4. Oppression makes even wise men mad35A paraphrase of Eccles. 7: 7. and reckless, for
illustration I pray look at East St. Louis.36Douglass obliquely refers to violence that erupted when the 1886 strike of the Knights of Labor against railroad magnate Jay Gould's southwestern system spread to East St. Louis, Illinois. After a bloody confrontation between company guards and strikers on 9 April 1886, a roving mob set fire to railroad property in the city. During these altercations, leaders of the Knights of Labor ineffectively appealed to the crowds for a cessation of violence. The intervention of the state militia finally brought order to the community. Ruth A. Allen, (Austin, Tex. , 1942), 80- 81; Philip S. Foner, (New York, 1947-), 2: 83-86; New York , 10, 11, 12 April 1886.
In the southern states to-day a landlord system is in operation which
keeps the negroes of that section in rags and wretchedness, almost to the
point of starvation. As a rule, this system puts it out of the power of the
negro to own land. There is, to be sure, no law forbidding the selling of
land to the colored people, but there [is] an understanding which has the
full effect of law. That understanding is that the land must be kept in the
hands of the old master class. The colored people can rent land, it is true,
and many of them do rent many acres, and find themselves poorer at the
end of the year than at the beginning, because they are charged more a year
for rent per acre than the land would bring at auction sale. The landlord and
tenant system of Ireland, which has conducted that country to the jaws of
ruin, bad as it is, is not worse than that which prevails at this hour at the
south, and yet the colored people of the south are constantly reproached for
their poverty. They are asked to make bricks without straw.37Douglass alludes to Exod. 5: 6-18. Their hands
are tied, and they [are] asked to work. They are forced to be poor, and
laughed at for their destitution.
I am speaking mainly to colored men to-night, but I want my words to
find their way to the eyes, ears. heads, and hearts of my white fellow-
countrymen, hoping that some among them may be made to think, some
hearts among them will be made to feel, and some of their number will be
made to act. I appeal to our white fellow-countrymen. The power to protect
is in their hands. This is and must be practically the white man’s govern-
ment. He has the numbers and the intelligence to control and direct. To him
belongs the responsibility of its honor or dishonor, its glory or its shame, its
salvation or its ruin. If they can protect the rights of white men, they can
protect the rights of black men; if they can defend the rights of American
citizens abroad, they can defend them at home; if they can use the army to
protect the rights of Chinamen, they can use the army to protect the rights
of colored men. The only trouble is the will! the will! the will! Here, as
elsewhere, “Where there is a will there is a way.”38This saying first appeared in English in George Herbert's (1640). F[rancis] E. Hutchinson, (Oxford, Eng., 1941), 345.
I have now said, not all that could be said, but enough to indicate the
relations at present existing between the white and colored people of this
country, especially the relations subsisting between the two classes of the
late slaveholding states. Time would fail me to trace this relation in all its
ramifications; but that labor is neither required by this audience nor by the
country. The condition of the emancipation class is known alike to our-
selves and to the government, to pulpit and press, and to both of the great
political parties. These have only to do their duty and all will be well.
One use of this annual celebration is to keep the subject of our grievances
before the people and government and to urge both to do their
respective parts in the happy solution of the race problem. The weapons of
our warfare for equal rights are not carnal but simple truth, addressed to
[the] hearts and sense of justice of the American people. If this fails we are
lost. We have no armies or generals, no swords or cannons to enforce our
claims, and do not want any.
We are often asked with an air of reproach by white men at the north,
“Why don’t your people fight their way to the ballot box?” The question
adds insult to injury.39Douglass quotes a fable of the Greek Phaedrus. , Book v, fable 3. Whom are we called upon to fight? They are the men
who held this nation, with all its tremendous resources of men and money,
at bay during four long and bloody years. Whom are we to fight? I answer,
not a few midnight assassins, not the rabble mob, but trained armies,
skilled generals of the confederate army, and in the last resort we should
have to meet the federal army. Though that army cannot now be employed
to defend the weak against the strong, means would certainly be found for
its employment to protect the strong against the weak. In such a case
insurrection would be madness.
But there is another remedy proposed. These people are advised to
make an exodus to the Pacific slope. With the best intentions they are told
of the fertility of the soil and salubrity of the climate. If they should tell the
same as existing in the moon the simple question, How shall they get there?
would knock the life out of it at once. Without money, without friends,
without knowledge, and only gaining enough by daily toil to keep them
above the starvation point, where they are, how can such a people rise and
cross the continent? The measure on its face is no remedy at all. Besides
who does not know that should these people ever attempt such an exodus,
that they would be met with shotguns at every cross road. Who does not
know that the white landholders of the south would never consent to let that
labor, which alone gives value to their land, march off without opposition.
Who does not know that if the federal government is powerless to protect
these people in staying that it would be equally powerless to protect them,
in going en masse? For one, I say, away with such contrivances, such lame
and impotent substitutes for the justice and protection due us. The first duty
that the national government owes to its citizens is protection.
While, however, I hold now, as I held years ago, that the south is the
natural home of the colored race, and that there must the destiny of that race
be mainly worked out, I still believe that means can be and ought to be
adopted to assist in the emigration of such of their number as may wish to
change their residence to parts of the country where their civil and political
rights are better protected, than at present they will be at the south.
I adopt the suggestion of the NATIONAL REPUBLICAN, of this city, that
diffusion is the true policy for the colored people of the south.40The Washington editorialized that the only solution to the problems of southern electoral violence and fraud was an organized migration of large numbers of blacks from that region. By reducing the South's population, the proposed black exodus would decrease Democratic congressional representation and electoral majorities. The newspaper believed that black civil rights would be better protected in other parts of the country and therefore racial tensions would be eased. Washington , 24, 27, 31 March, 6 April 1886; Waldo E. Martin, Jr., (Chapel Hill, 1984), 75. All, of
course, cannot leave that section, and ought not; but some can, and the
condition of those who must remain will be better because of those who go.
Men, like trees, may be too thickly planted to thrive. If the labor market of
Mississippi were to-day not overloaded and oversupplied the laborers
would be more fully appreciated; but this work of diffusion and distribution
cannot be carried out by the emancipated class alone. They need and ought
to have the material aid of both white and colored people of the free states.
A million of dollars devoted to this purpose would do more for the colored
people of the south than the same amount expended in any other way. There
is no degradation, no loss of self-respect, in asking this aid, considering the
circumstances of these people. The white people of this nation owe them
this help and a great deal more. The key-note of the future should not be
concentration, but diffusion—distribution. This may not be a remedy for
all evils now uncured, but it certainly will be a help in the right direction.
A word now in respect of another remedy for the black man’s ills. It
calls itself independent political action. This has, during the past few years,
been advocated with much zeal and spirit by several of our leading colored
men, and also with much ability, though I am happy to say not with much
success. First, their plan, if I understand it, is, to separate the colored
people of the country from the Republican party. This with them is the
primary and essential condition of making the colored vote independent.
Hence all their artillery is directed to making that party odious in the eyes of
the colored voters. Colored men who adhere to the Republican party, are
identified as slaves, officeseekers, serviles, “knuckle-close” Republicans,
as tools of white men, traitors to their race, and much more of the same
sort. Perhaps no one has been a more prominent target for such denuncia-
tion than your humble speaker.
Now, the position to which these gentlemen invite us is one of neu-
trality, between the two great political parties—and to vote with either or
against either, according to the prevailing motive when the time for action
shall arrive. In the interval we are to have no standing with either party, and
have no active influence in shaping the policy of either—but we are to
stand alone, and hold ourselves ready to serve one or to serve the other, or
both, as we may incline at the moment.
With all respect to these political doctors, I must say that their remedy
is no remedy at all. No man can serve two masters41Matt. 6: 24 and Luke 16: 13. in politics any more
than in religion. If there is one position in life more despicable in the eyes of
man, and more condemned by nature than another, it is that of neutrality.
Besides, if there is one thing more impossible than another, it is a position
of perfect neutrality in politics. Our friends, Fortune,42Born into a Florida slave family, Timothy Thomas Fortune (1856- I928) attended Freedmen's Bureau schools and learned the printer’s trade in Jacksonville. After studying briefly in the Preparatory Department at Howard University, Fortune took his first newspaper job on the in Washington, D.C. In 1879 he moved to New York City, where he edited a series of newspapers: the (1881-84), the (1884-87), and the (1889- 1907). In the 1880s, along with T. McCants Stewart and Peter H. Clark, Fortune broke ranks with most black leaders by supporting Democratic candidates. During the 1888 election campaign, he edited the Cincinnati to support Grover Cleveland. Although they often quarreled over political issues, Fortune publicly condemned those blacks who anathematized Douglass for his marriage to a white. In later years, Fortune used the New York to promote the National Afro-American League and its successor, the National Afro-American Council, which foreshadowed the legal campaigns for civil rights waged by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Fortune's militancy, which at one time included elements of class consciousness and black nationalism, was considerably restrained by the New York 's financial dependency on Booker T. Washington. From 1907 to 1919, Fortune suffered from serious psychological and alcohol-related disorders that reduced him to poverty. He eventually recovered and ended his journalistic career as editor of the New York , the official periodical of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association. Douglass to T[imothy] Thomas Fortune, 26 May 1883, 30 August 1884, 28 April, 25 May 1889, Douglass Collection, CtY; T[imothy] Thomas Fortune to Douglass, 20 April 1886, 18 September 1889, 14 October 1890, 14 August 1891 , 27 February 1893, General Correspondence File, reel 4, frame 326, reel 5, frames 555-57, 831-32, reel 6, frame 203, reel 7, frame 74; Emma Lou Thombrough, (Chicago, 1972); Jean M. Allman and David R. Roediger, “The Early Editorial Career of Timothy Thomas Fortune: Class, Nationalism and Consciousness of Africa," , 6: 39-52 (July 1982); , 236-38. Downing,43In 1883 George T. Downing publicly endorsed a division of the black vote on the grounds that both parties should have to compete for the race’s electoral support. Downing himself supported Democratic party candidates that year. In 1891 he again urged a divided black vote. New York , 12 May 1883; August Meier, (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1963), 28-29; , 187-88. and
others, flatter themselves that they have reached this perfection, but they
are utterly mistaken. No man can read their utterances without seeing their
animus of hate to the Republican party, and their preference for the Demo-
cratic party. The fault is not so much in their intention, as in their position.
They can neither act with nor against the two parties impartially. They are
compelled by their position to either serve the one and oppose the other,
and they cannot serve or oppose both alike. Independence like neutrality, is
also impossible. If the colored man does not depend upon the Republican
party, he will depend upon the Democratic party, and if he does neither, he
becomes a nonentity in American politics. But these gentlemen do, in
effect, ask us to break down the power of the Republican party, when to do
it is to put the government in the hands of the Democratic party. Colored
men are already in the Republican party, and to come out of it is to defeat it.
For one, I must say that the Democratic party has as yet [not] given me
sufficient reasons for doing it any such service, nor has the Republican
party sunk so low that I must abandon it for its great rival. With all its faults
it is the best party now in existence. In it are the best elements of the
American people, and if any good is to come to us politically, it will be
through that party.
I must cease to remember a great many things and must forget a great
[many] things before I can counsel any man, colored or white, to join the
Democratic party, or to occupy a position of neutrality between that party
and the Republican party. Such a position of the colored people of this
country will prove about as comfortable as between the upper and nether
millstone.44An English proverb dating back to at least the early sixteenth century. Tilley, , 462. Those of our number now posing as Independents are doing
better service to the Democratic party under the Independent mask than
they could do if they came out honestly for the Democratic party.
I am charged with commending the inaugural address of President
Cleveland. I am not ashamed of that charge. I said at the time that no better
words for the colored citizen had dropped from the east portico of the
capitol since the days of Lincoln and Grant, and I say so still, I did not say,
as my traducer lyingly asserts, that Mr. Cleveland said better words than
Lincoln or Grant. But it would not have suited the man who left Wash-
ington with malice in his heart and falsehood in his throat to be more
truthful in Petersburg than in Washington. This malcontent accuser seeks to
make the impression that those who thought and spoke well of the inaugural
address did so from selfish motives, and from a desire to get or retain
office.45Douglass responds to criticism of his previous year's Emancipation Day oration in Washington, D.C., found in an article published in the Petersburg and reprinted in the Washington in anticipation of the 1886 celebration. The anonymous author of the article condemned Douglass’s praise of President Grover Cleveland's inaugural address in 1885 as a shameless attempt to retain his appointment as recorder of deeds under the new Democratic administration. Apparently Douglass agreed with the speculation of the that this attack was the product of John Mercer Langston, who had left Washington in early 1886 to assume the presidency of the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute at Petersburg. Washington , 10, 17, 24 April 1886; John Mercer Langston, ( l894; New York, 1969), 409-12. “Out of the heart the mouth speaketh.” “With what judgment ye
judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, the same shall
be measured to you again.”46Douglass paraphrases Matt. 7: 12, Mark 4: 24, and Luke 6: 37-38. He ought to remember, however, that a
serpent without a fang, a scorpion without a sting has no more ability to
poison than a lie which has lost its ability to deceive has to injure. It so
happens that we had two Presidents and one Vice President prior to Presi-
dent Cleveland, and I challenge my ambitious and envious accuser to find
any better word for the colored citizens of this country in the inaugural
address of either than is found in the inaugural address of President
Cleveland.47Probably an allusion to Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and Chester Arthur. I also beg my accuser to remember that I gave no pledge that
Mr. Cleveland would be able to live up to the sentiments of that address,
but, on the contrary, I doubted even the probability of his success in doing
so. I gave him credit, however, for an honest purpose and expressed a hope
that he might be able to do as well and better than he promised. But I saw
him in the rapids and predicted that they would be too strong for him. Did
this look like seeking favor? He did a brave thing in removing from office
an abettor of murder in Mississippi. He has expressed in a private way to
Messrs. Bruce and Lynch his reprobation of the recent massacre at Car-
rollton,48Blanche K. Bruce and John R. Lynch visited with President Grover Cleveland at the White House for nearly an hour on 24 March 1886 to discuss the recent mob attack upon blacks at Carrollton, Mississippi. During this interview Cleveland expressed his strong condemnation of the racially motivated violence and his surprise that state officials had not initiated an investigation to discover and arrest the perpetrators. Bruce and Lynch later told the press that they were pleased by the interest that the president had displayed on the matter. Washington, 25 March 1886. and for this we thank him. But he has done nothing in his position
as commander-in-chief of the army and navy to put a stop to such horrors. I
am quite sure that he abhors violence and bloodshed. He has shown this
in his publicly spoken words in behalf of persecuted and murdered
Chinamen49Douglass probably alludes to President Grover Cleveland's response to a wave of anti-Chinese rioting that occurred in Washington Territory in the latter months of 1885 and left two dead and hundreds displaced. Cleveland issued a proclamation calling on citizens of that territory to cease all such unlawful acts and assemblies. New York , 8 November 1885; John H. McGraw, “The Anti-Chinese Riots of 1885," , 2: 388-97 (1915). he should do the same for the persecuted and murdered black
citizens of Mississippi. He could threaten the law-breakers and murderers
of the west with the sword of the nation, why not the south? If it was right to
protect and defend the Chinese, why not the negro? If in the days of slavery
the army could be used to hunt slaves, and suppress slave insurrections,
why, in the days of liberty, may it not be used to enforce rights guaranteed
by the constitution? Alas! fellow-citizens, there is no right so neglected as
the negro’s right. There is no flesh so despised as the negro’s flesh. There is
no blood so cheap as the negro’s blood. I have been saying these things to
the American people for nearly fifty years. In the order of nature I cannot
say them much longer, but, as was said by another, “though time himself
should confront me, and shake his hoary locks at my persistence, 1 shall not
cease while life is left me, and our wrongs are unredressed to thus cry aloud
and spare not.”50Douglass adapts Isa. 58: 1.
Fellow-citizens, I am disappointed. The accession of the Democratic
party to power has not been followed by the results I expected. When the
tiger has quenched his thirst in blood, and when the anaconda has swal-
lowed his prey, they cease to pursue their trembling game and sink to rest;
so I thought when the Democratic party came into power, when the solid
south gave law to the land, when there could no longer be any pretense for
the fear of negro ascendency in the councils of the nation, persecution,
violence, and murder would cease and the negro would be left in peace, but
the bloody scenes at Carrollton, and the daily reports of lynch law in the
south, have destroyed this cherished hope and told me that the end of our
sufferings is not yet.
But, fellow-citizens, I do not despair, and no power that I know of can
make me despair of the ultimate triumph of justice and liberty in this
country. I have seen too many abuses outgrown, too many evils removed,
too many moral and physical improvements made, to doubt that the wheels
of progress will still roll on. We have but to toil and trust, throw away
whiskey and tobacco, improve the opportunities that we have, put away all
extravagance, learn to live within our means, lay up our earnings, educate
our children, live industrious and virtuous lives, establish a character for
sobriety, punctuality, and general uprightness, and we shall raise up power-
ful friends who shall stand by us in our struggle for an equal chance in the
race of life. The white people of this country are asleep, but not dead. In
other days we had a potent voice in the Senate which awoke the nation.
Ireland now has an advocate in the British senate who has arrested the
eye and ear of the civilized world in championing the cause of Ireland.
There is to-day in the American Senate an opportunity for an American
Gladstone;51William Ewart Gladstone. one whose voice shall have power to awake this nation to the
stupendous wrongs inflicted upon our newly-made citizens and move the
government to a vindication of our constitutional rights. We have in other
days had a Sumner, a Wilson, a Chase, a Conkling, a Thaddeus Stevens
and Morton.52Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson, Salmon P. Chase, Roscoe Conkling, Thaddeus Stevens, and Oliver P. Morton. These did not exhaust the justice and humanity of American
statesmanship. There is heart and eloquence still left in the councils of the
nation, and these will, I trust, yet make themselves potent in having both
the constitution of 1789, and the constitution with the fourteenth and
fifteenth amendments made practically the law of the land for all the people
thereof.