The Highest Honor Conferred on Me: An Address Delivered in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on November 14, 1889
THE HIGHEST HONOR CONFERRED ON ME:
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI,
ON 14 NOVEMBER 1889
Enclosed document in Douglass to James G. Blaine, 18 November 1889, U.S. Legation,
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dispatches to the State Department, RG 84, Records of Foreign
Service Posts, State Department, DNA. Other texts in Norma Brown. ed., , 2 vols. (Salisbury, N.C., 1977), 1: 40-43; Detroit , 6 December
1889.
On 1 July 1889, President Benjamin Harrison appointed Douglass to the
combined positions of U.S. minister resident and consul general to the Re-
public of Haiti and chargé d’affaires to the Dominican Republic. Douglass
departed for his new post on 1 October 1891. The reorganization of the
Haitian government following the conclusion of a bloody civil war tem-
porarily delayed the presentation of Douglass’s diplomatic credentials to the
new president Louis Mondestin Florvil Hyppolite. On the afternoon of 14
November 1891, Douglass finally had his initial audience with Hyppolite at
the National Palace in Port-au-Prince and presented letters from Harrison,
announcing the appointment of Douglass to replace the former U.S. minister,
John E. W. Thompson. Hyppolite briefly replied to Douglass’s remarks,
welcoming the new minister and calling him "the incarnation of the idea
which Haiti is following—the moral and intellectual development of men of
the African race by personal effort and mental culture.” Douglass later re-
ported to Secretary of State James G. Blaine that the Haitians had welcomed
him with great ceremony. Hyppolite’s response to Douglass and Douglass’s
report on this audience are reproduced in Appendixes B and C. Douglass to
Anténor Firmin. 11 November 1889, Douglass to James G. Blaine, 18
November 1889, Anténor Firmin to Douglass. 11 November 1891, U.S.
Legation, Port-au-Prince, Dispatches to the State Department, RG 84, Rec-
ords of Foreign Service Posts, State Department, DNA; Brown, , 1: 33-37, 44-46; Heinl and Heinl, , 307-11.
President,1Louis Mondestin Florvil Hyppolite (1827-96), son of a former Haitian minister, served under two administrations before participating in a successful insurrection against President Etienne Félicité (Lysius) Salomon in 1888. After the assassination ofthe leading rebel, Seide Télémaque, a bloody civil war broke out in which Hyppolite commanded the forces of the nation's north against Francois-Denis Legitime who held the loyalty of the south and the capital of Port-au-Prince. Hyppolite eventually won this contest and was sworn in as president of Haiti on 17 October 1889. An able leader and diplomat, Hyppolite ruled Haiti for seven years by sharing de facto power with several regional warlords. He is remembered for his improvements of the nation’s public works. Hyppolite died while preparing to suppress a rebellion in the nation's south. Roland I. Perusse, (Metuchen, N.J., 1977), 54; Heinl and Heinl, , 244, 301-20; Robert I. Rotberg, (Boston, 1971), 96, 98-99; H[arold] P[almer] Davis, , 2nd ed. (New York, 1929), 133-36. I come to present to your Excellency the letter of credence
which accredits me as Minister Resident and Consul General of the United
States to reside near Your Excellency’s Government, and also, to present
the letter of recall of my respected predecessor.2Douglass's predecessor as minister resident to Haiti was another pioneer black diplomat, John Edward West Thompson (1855-1918). Born in Brooklyn, New York, Thompson graduated from the Yale Medical School in 1883 and opened a practice in New York City. On the recommendation of prominent New York City Democrats, Grover Cleveland selected Thompson to replace John M. Langston, a Republican, as minister resident to Haiti in spring 1885. A civil war between the government of President Francois Légitime and the rebel followers of Louis Mondestin Florvil Hyppolite caused the only major diplomatic incident between the United States and Haiti during Thompson‘s tenure there. At Thompson's suggestion the United States dispatched two warships to coerce the Légitime government into releasing an American merchant ship that had been confiscated for carrying supplies to the rebels. Because of the turmoil in Haiti caused by the overthrow of Légitime by Hyppolite in the summer of 1889, President Benjamin Harrison authorized Thompson to retain his office until his replacement arrived. Douglass, however, complained that Thompson improperly continued to present himself to the Haitians as the official U.S. representative until Douglass gained his first audience with Hyppolite at the time of this speech. Thompson returned to the practice of medicine in New York City and later Bridgeport, Connecticut. Douglass to James G. Blaine. 18 November 1889. Anténor Firmin to Douglass, 11 November 1891, U.S. Legation. Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dispatches to the State Department, RG 84, Records of Foreign Service Posts, State Department, DNA; Logan, , 390, 392, 429; , 588-89; , 13: 477.
In discharging this duty 1 should do imperfect justice to the sentiments
of the President of the United States3Benjamin Harrison. if I failed to express, on his behalf,
emphatic assurances of the cordial good will and high consideration in
which Your Excellency is held by him and by his Administration.
On my own part I cannot too strongly assure Your Excellency that,
inspired by the sentiment entertained by my countrymen generally, I shall,
while I remain near Your Excellency’s Government, earnestly endeavor to
conserve and promote the cordial relations which have so long and so
happily subsisted between the United States and Haiti.
By reason of the large similarity of the institutions of the two countries
and their mutual interests, this result, I am persuaded, will be easy of
attainment. We are bound in ties of friendship by the strong bond of a
common civilization. Happily, too, the spirit of the age powerfully assists
in establishing a sentiment of universal brotherhood. Art, science, discov-
ery and invention have gone forward with such speed as almost to tran-
scend our ability to keep pace with them. Steam, electricity and enterprise
are linking together all the oceans, islands, capes and continents, disclos-
ing more and more the common interests and interdependence of nations.
The growing commerce and intercommunication of various na-
tionalities, so important to the dissemination of knowledge, to the enlarge-
ment of human sympathies, and to the extinction of hurtful prejudices
import no menace to the autonomy of nations, but develop opportunities
for the exercise of a generous spirit of forbearance and concession, favor-
able to peace and fraternal relations between them.
In this beneficient tendency of our times, I assure Your Excellency that
the President of the United States sincerely desires for the Republic of
Haiti. the fullest participation.
In conclusion Your Excellency will me a word personal in part, to
myself, as it may foreshadow the spirit in which 1 hope to be able to
discharge the duties incumbent upon me in the quality of Minister Resident
near your Government. Mine has been a long and eventful life, identified
with the maintainance of principles illustrated in the example of Haiti.
My country has conferred upon me many marks of its favor, but in view
of the heroic devotion to liberty and independence exemplified by your
brave countrymen in the darkest hour of their history, I can say, in all
sincerity, that I have received at the hands of my Government no honor that
I prize more highly than the honor of my appointment as Minister Resident
and Consul General to the Republic of Haiti.