We Are Confronted by a New Administration: An Address Delivered in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 1885
WE ARE CONFRONTED BY A NEW ADMINISTRATION:
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN WASHINGTON, D.C.,
ON 16 APRIL 1885
Washington , 18 April 1885. Other texts in Washington , 17 April
1885; New York , 2 May 1885; Frederick Douglass, (Wash-
ington, D.C., 1886), 24-41; Speech File, reel 15, frames 679-91 , FD Papers, DLC; Foner,
, 4: 413-26.
The twenty-third anniversary celebration of the emancipation of slaves in the
District of Columbia on 16 April 1885 consisted of a parade during the day
and oratorical exercises at Lincoln Memorial Congregational Church in the
evening. Reviewed by President Grover Cleveland and his cabinet at the
White House, the parade contained floats, wagons, military units, and march-
ing representatives from local labor unions, benevolent associations, and
social clubs. Despite dissension about the propriety of such parades, more
than five thousand people took part in it. At the evening exercises, Blanche K.
Bruce presided, William Calvin Chase read an Emancipation edict, and
Douglass delivered the major oration. Douglass’s speech was so long that
most of the other scheduled addresses had to be canceled. The Washington
characterized Douglass’s speech as “able and eloquent,”
while the wrote that the oration “was worthy the man
and the occasion. Mr. Douglass still retains his old power, both of thought and
feeling. His friends have a right to claim that he is one of the foremost orators
of the times. His head is gray, but his mind and heart are still young.” A more
critical appraisal came from T. Thomas Fortune, the black editor of the New
York , who complained that Douglass’s address left him “in a very
confused state of mind as to the real politics which he holds. We are unable to
discover whether he is a hopeless partisan, or whether he places race and the
general good above patty.” Douglass’s correspondents were more compli-
mentary, especially long-time friend Henry O. Wagoner who wrote: “The
clear, convincing and amusing common-sense reasoning, which pervades the
oration, entitles it to be published in pamphlet form.” Washington , 14, 21
March, 18 April, 16 May 1885; Washington , 16, 17 April 1885;
Cleveland , 18 April 1885; New York , 9 May 1885; The
American , 39: 163-65 (June 1885); C. A. Bartol to Douglass, 20
April 1885, Henry O. Wagoner to Douglass, 27 April 1885, William I.
Bowditch to Douglass, 29 April 1885, General Correspondence File, reel 4,
frames 159-62, FD Papers, DLC.
FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: Your committee of arrangements were
pleased to select me as your orator of the day, on an occasion similar to this,
two years ago.1Douglass served as featured speaker at the commemorative celebration of the twenty-first anniversary of emancipation in the District of Columbia at the First Congregational Church of that city on 16 April 1883. At that time, while appreciating the honor conferred upon
me, I ventured to express the wish that some one of the many competent
colored young men of this city and District had been chosen to discharge
this honorable duty in my stead. There were excellent reasons for that wish
then, and there are even much better reasons for the same wish now. Time
and cultivation have largely added to the number of those from whom a
suitable selection might have been made, and one of these silent, yet
powerful, agents whose mission it is to create and destroy all things mortal
has left me much less desire for such distinguished service now than two
years ago. Happily, however, the burden is not heavy or grievous, and the
proper story of this occasion is simple, familiar, and easily told. In observ-
ing the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia
we attract the attention of the American people to one of the most important
and significant events in their national history, and at the same time evince
a grateful and proper sense of the wonderful changes for the better that have
taken place in our condition and in that of the country generally. Though in
its immediate and legal operation this act of emancipation was local in its
range as to territory and limited in its application as to the number of
persons liberated by it, morally it looms upon us as a grand, comprehen-
sive, and far-reaching measure.
To appreciate its importance we must not consider it as a single inde-
pendent act standing alone, nor as one pertaining to this District only, nor to
the colored people only. We must regard it as a part of a series of splendid
public measures, as one of so many steps in the national progress looking to
one beneficent and glorious result, a large contribution to the honor and
welfare of the whole country. It was the auspicious beginning of a great
movement in the councils of the nation, made necessary by the war, and
one which finally culminated in the complete and permanent abolition of
slavery, not only in the District of Columbia, but in every part of the
republic. Thus viewed it was the one act which broke the gloomy spell that
bound the nation in the bonds of servile, unnatural reverence and awe for
slavery. It withdrew the sympathy of European nations from the rebellion;
it brought the moral support of the civilized world to the loyal cause; it
erased the foulest blot that ever stained our national escutcheon; it gave to
the war for the Union a logical, humane, and consistent purpose; it solved a
problem which was the standing grief of good men, and the perplexity of
statesmen for ages; it gave courage and hope to our armies in the field; it
weakened the rebellion; it raised the whole nation to a higher and happier
plane of civilization, and placed the American people where they never
were before, in a position where they could consistently and effectively
preach liberty to all the nations of the world.
The 16th of April, the anniversary of this great act of the nation,
strangely and erroneously enough, has been considered simply as the
colored man’s day only. The business of consecrating and preserving its
memory has been, by common consent, relegated to him exclusively. But,
in this, our fellow-citizens have been more generous to us than just to
themselves. Colored men have very little more reason to hallow this day
than have white men. If it brought freedom to us, it brought peace and
safety to them, and hence they may well enough unite in this and similar
celebrations, and regard the day as theirs as well as ours. No truth taught by
our national history is more evident than this, that while slavery dominated
the southern half of the republic, and free institutions prevailed in the
northern half, peace and harmony between the two sections were utterly
and forever impossible. No man can serve two masters,2Matt. 6: 24 and Luke 16: 13. and the attempt of
our government to do this was a stupendous failure. The union between
liberty and slavery was a marriage without love, a house divided against
itself;3A close paraphrase of Mark 3: 25. a couple unequally yoked together, held together by external force,
not by moral cohesion; it brought happiness to neither, and misery to both.
Like any other embodiment of social and material interest peculiar to a
given community, slavery generated its own sentiments, its own morals,
manners, and religion; and begot a character in all around it in favor of its
own existence.
In nearly everything indigenous and peculiar to society in the two
sections, they were as separate and distinct as are any two nations on the
globe. The longer they were thus linked together in the bonds of outward
union, the more palpable became their points of difference, and the more
passionate became their hostility to each other. Liberty became more and
more the glory of the north, and slavery more and more the idol of the
south. Not even the bonds of Christian fellowship were strong enough to
hold together the churches of the two sections.
In view of this settled and growing antagonism, only one of three
courses was open to the nation: The first was to make the country all slave,
the second was to make it all free, and the third was to divide the Union and
let each section set up a government of its own—the one based upon the
system of slavery, and the other based upon the principles of the Declara-
tion of American Independence.
Thanks to the wisdom, loyalty, patriotism, courage, and statesmanship
developed by the crisis, the nation rejected equally the idea of making the
country all slave, and permitting two separate nations, with hostile civiliza-
tions, side by side, with a chafing, bloody border between them, but chose
to give us one country, one citizenship, and one liberty for all the people,
and hence we are here this evening. There was never any physical reason
for the dissolution of the Union. The geographical and topographical con-
ditions of the country all served to unite rather than to divide the two
sections. It was moral not physical dynamite that blew the two sections
asunder.
We are told by the poet that—
“Lands intersected by a narrow firth abhor each other;
Mountains interposed make enemies of nations,
Which else, like kindred drops, had mingled into one.”4Douglass quotes lines 16-18 of by William Cowper. J. C. Bailey, ed., (London, 1905), 267.
But in this case there were neither firths nor mountains to separate the
south from the north, or to make our southern brethren hate the people of
the north. The moral cause of trouble in the system of slavery being now
removed peace and harmony are possible, and I doubt not, these blessings,
though long delayed, will finally come. In calling attention to the event
which makes this day precious we honor ourselves, and honor the noble
and brave men who brought it about. We render our humble tribute of
gratitude to-day, not only to those whose valor and whose blood on the
battle field brought freedom to the American slave; not only to the great
generals who led our armies, but to our great statesmen as well who framed
our laws; and not to these only, but also to the noble army of men and
women which preceded both statesmen and warriors in the cause of eman-
cipation, and made these warriors and statesmen possible. Neither would
our gratitude forget those who supplemented the great act of emancipation
by carrying the blessings of education to the benighted south, thus prepar-
ing the liberated freedman for the duties of citizenship.
I need not stop here to call the roll of any of these classes. The nation
knows the debt it owes them, and will never forget them. We have but to
mention the honored name of Abraham Lincoln in the presidential chair, of
Ulysses S. Grant in the field, at whose bedside a grateful nation now stands
mute in sympathy and sad expectation; of William Lloyd Garrison in the
columns of the Liberator, of Wendell Phillips on the rostrum, of Charles
Sumner in the Senate, to cause a host of noble men and women to start up
and pass in reviews before us.
But I drop this brief reference to the history and personnel of the anti-
slavery movement, and will speak of matters nearer our times and equally
pertinent to this occasion. Those who abolished slavery did their work, and
did it well. They served their day and generation with wisdom, courage,
and fortitude, and are an example to this and coming generations. They
bravely upheld the principles of liberty and justice, and it will go well with
this nation and with us if we in our time and if those who are to come after
us, in theirs, shall adhere to and uphold these same principles with equal
zeal, courage, fidelity, and fortitude. One generation cannot safely rest on
the achievements of another, and ought not so to rest.
Hitherto there has been little variety in the thoughts, resolutions, and
addresses presented for consideration on occasions similar to this. Each
celebration has been almost a facsimile of its predecessors. The speeches
have been little more than echoes of those made before, because the condi-
tions of their utterance have been so uniform, and all one way. To-day,
however, conditions are changed, or appear to be changed. We do not stand
where we stood one year ago. We are confronted by a new administration.
The term of twenty-four years of steady, unbroken, successful Republican
rule is ended.5When inaugurated on 4 March 1885 Grover Cleveland was the first Democratic president in office since Abraham Lincoln succeeded James Buchanan in 1861. The great Republican party that carried the country safely
through the late war against the rebellion, emancipated the slave, saved the
Union, reconstructed the government of the southern states, enfranchised
the freedmen; raised the national credit, improved the currency, decreased
the national debt, and did more for the honor, prosperity, and glory of the
American people than was ever done before in the same length of time by
any party in any country under similar circumstances, has been defeated,
humiliated, and driven from place and power.
For the first time since the chains fell from the limbs of the slaves of the
District of Columbia; for the first time since slaves were raised from
chattels to men; for the first time since they were clothed with dignity of
American citizenship they find themselves under the rule of a political
party which steadily opposed their every step from bondage to freedom,
and this fact may well enough give a peculiar coloring to the thoughts and
feelings with which this anniversary of emancipation is celebrated.
The great question of the hour respects the true significance of this
change in the national front. What does it portend? How will it affect our
relations to the people and government of this country? How was this
stupendous change brought about, and in point of fact, it may be asked with
some propriety if there has really been any serious change made in our
condition by this change in the relations of parties?
To the eye of the colored man the change, or apparent change in the
political situation is very marked, and wears a very sinister aspect. He has
so long been accustomed to think the Republican party the sheet—anchor of
his liberty, the star of all his hopes, that he can see nought but ill in the
ascendancy of the Democratic party. He addresses it much as did Hamlet
his father’s ghost;
“Tell why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulcher,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws to cast thee up again.
What may this mean, that thou, dead corpse,
Again in complete steel, revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and we, poor fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?”6, act 1, sc. 4, lines 46-56.
It is, perhaps, too early to determine the full significance of the return
of the Democratic party to power, or to tell just how that return to power
came about. One thing must be admitted, and that is that the power and
vitality of the Democratic party have been vastly underrated. It has in-
dulged in vices and crimes enough to have killed a dozen ordinary parties,
and yet it lives. At times it has really seemed to be dead. Some said it had
died by opposing the war for the Union, but it was not so. We thought the
life had gone out of it when it took our late friend, Horace Greeley, for its
candidate for the Presidency and adopted a Republican platform, but it was
not so.
It was the same old party in a new dress, and time has shown that it was
as full of life and power as ever. The fact is, it was never either honestly
dead or securely buried. Even when it slept it had one eye open, and saw
better with that one eye than did the Republican party with its two. Our
mistakes concerning it have been made abundantly clear by the late elec-
tion and the dazzling splendor of the recent inauguration. We thought the
Democratic party dead when it was alive, and the Republican party alive
and strong when it was half dead. Long continuance in power had devel-
oped rival ambitions, personal animosities, factional combinations in the
Republican party that were fatal to its success and even endangered its life.
One great lesson taught by Republican defeat is familiar to all. It is the
folly of relying upon past good behavior for present success. Parties, like
men, must act in the living present or fail. It is not what they have done or
left undone in the past that turns the scale, but what they are doing, and
mean to do now. The result shows that neither the past good conduct of the
Republican party nor the past bad conduct of the Democratic party has had
much to do with the late election.
Americans have too little memory for good or bad political conduct.
The people have said in the late election, “We care nothing for your past;
but what is your present character and work?” And in rendering judgment
they have said, “We see little ground for preferring one to the other.”
But, fellow-citizens, it is consoling to think that this change in the
political front justly implies no real change for the worse in the moral
convictions of the American people. On the great questions that divided the
parties during the periods of war and reconstruction there has been no
change whatever. Upon all the great measures of justice, liberty, and civi-
lization, originated and carried through Congress by the Republican party.
I believe the heart of the nation to be still safe and sound. If the measures
then in controversy between the parties were now submitted to the Ameri-
can people, I fully believe they would sustain them one and all by an
overwhelming vote.
The trouble was that the Republican party in the late campaign forgot
for the moment its high mission as the party of great moral ideas, and
sought victory on grounds far below its ordinary level. It made national pelf
more important and prominent than national purity. It made the body more
important than the soul; national prosperity more important than national
justice. There was no square issue made up between the parties. One talked
in favor of the tariff and the other did not talk against it.7James G. Blaine and the Republican platform maintained the party's traditional advocacy of the protective tariff during the 1884 presidential election campaign. Anticipating a possible large defection of “Mugwump” Republicans offended by Blaine's taint of public corruption, the Democrats wrote a platform that attempted to mute historic points of difference between the parties. Although the Democrats promised to reduce the tariff levels to bring revenues back into line with government expenses, they pledged to do so in ways that promoted not injured domestic industries. This moderation on the tariff issue also illustrated the growing importance of the fiscally conservative urban and commercial interests in the Democratic party best represented by the choice of candidate Grover Cleveland. Schlesinger, , 1570-71, 1573; Johnson, , 1: 65-68, 72-74. Both together beat
the air and raised a dust, confused counsel, blinded the voters, and ren-
dered victory a thing of chance rather than a thing of choice. The Re-
publican party was not more surprised by defeat than the Democratic party
was astonished by victory. Twelve hundred votes would have changed the
result;8Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland defeated his Republican rival James G. Blaine by 1,143 votes in New York to carry that state and the presidential election of 1884. W. Dean Burnham, (Baltimore, 1955), 137. so that nothing for the future can be safely predicted upon the
election either way. It does not imply that the Democratic party is in power
to stay, or that the Republican party is out of power to stay, or that new
parties are to arise and take the place of the old.
While it was painfully evident that the Republican party, during the late
canvass, had little or nothing to say against the outrages committed upon
the newly enfranchised people of the south, it was equally plain that the
Democratic party had nothing to say in defense of these outrages. Yet it is
not strange, in view of the history of the two parties, that much alarm was
felt by colored people all over the south when they first learned that the
great Republican party was defeated and that the Democratic party was
soon to administer the national government.
Ignorant as the colored people of the south have been, and may still be,
about other matters of national importance, they have always been intel-
ligent enough as to the character and relations of political parties. They
have never been mistaken as to the historical difference between the party
which gave them liberty and the party which sought to continue their
enslavement. They had known the Democratic party long and well and
only as the party of the old master class. They naturally held the triumph of
that party as a victory of the old master class. In the panic of the moment
they saw in it a possible attempt to rehabilitate the old order of government
in the south, in which they would be greatly oppressed if not enslaved.
In the joy and exultation of the old master class over the defeat of the
Republican party, and over the return of the old Democratic party to power,
they read what they thought their doom. Jealous of their newly-gained
liberty, as well they might be, feeling themselves in peril and left naked to
their enemies, their fears amounted to agony. But, thanks to the kind
assurances promptly given by the President-elect and by other Democrats
in high places, this alarm was transient, and has now given way in some
measure to a feeling of confidence and security.
How long this feeling of confidence and security will last, however,
will depend upon the future policy of the present administration. The
inaugural address of President Cleveland was all that any friend of liberty
and justice could reasonably ask for the freedmen.9The press reported stories about southern black alarm at the election of the first Democrat to the White House since James Buchanan. In his inaugural address on 4 March 1885, Grover Cleveland attempted to calm any such fears. He declared that “there should be no pretext for anxiety touching the protection of the freedmen in their rights, or their security in the enjoyment of their privileges under the Constitution and its amendments." New York , 14, 19, 20 November 1884; Albert Ellery Bergh, ed., (New York, 1909), 59-64. It was a frank and
manly avowal, worthy of the occasion. It accepted their citizenship as a fact
settled beyond debate, and as a subject which ought to attract attention only
with a view to the improvement of their character and their better qualifica-
tion by education for the duties and responsibilities of citizens of the
republic.
No better words have dropped from the east portico of the capitol since
the inauguration days of Abraham Lincoln and Gen. Grant. I believe they
were sincerely spoken, but whether the President will be able to administer
the government in the light of those liberal sentiments is an open question.
The one-man power in our government is very great, but the power of party
may be greater. The President is not the autocrat, but the executive of the
nation. But, happily, the executive is yet a power, and may be able to obtain
the support of the co-ordinate branches of the government in so plain a duty
as protecting the rights of the colored citizens, with those of all other
citizens of the republic. For one, though Republican I am, and have been,
and ever expect to be, though I did what I could to elect James G. Blaine as
President of the United States, I am disposed to trust President Cleveland.
By his words as well as by his oath of office, solemnly subscribed to before
uncounted thousands of American citizens, he is held and firmly bound to
execute the constitution of the United States in the fullness of its spirit and
in the completeness of its letter, and thus far he has shown no disposition to
shrink from that duty.
The southern question is evidently the most difficult question with
which President Cleveland will have to deal. Hard as it may be to manage
his party on the civil service question, where he has only to deal with
hungry and thirsty officeseekers, nineteen out of every twenty of whom he
must necessarily offend by failing to find desirable places for them, he will
find it incomparably harder to meet that party’s wishes in dealing with the
southern question. There are several methods of disposing of this southern
question open to him, and there are lions in the way, whichever method he
may adopt.
First. He may adopt a policy of total indifference. He may shut his eyes
to the fact that in all the gulf states political rights of colored citizens are
literally stamped out; that the constitution which he has solemnly sworn to
support and enforce is under the feet of the mob; that in those states there is
no such thing as a fair election and an honest count. He may utterly refuse
to interfere by word or deed for the enforcement of the constitution and for
the protection of the ballot, and let the southern question drift whither-
soever it will, to a port of safety or to a rock of disaster. He will probably be
counseled to pursue the course of President Hayes,10Rutherford B. Hayes. but I hope he will
refuse to follow it. The reasons which supported that policy do not exist in
the case of a Democratic President. Mr. Hayes made a virtue of necessity.11Douglass probably adapts , act 4, sc. 1, line 62.
He had fair warning that not a dollar or a dime would be voted by a
Democratic Congress if the army were kept in the south. The cry of the
country was against what was called bayonet rule.
Secondly. The President may pursue a temporizing policy; keep the
word of promise to the ear and break it to the heart,12Douglass slightly misquotes , act 5, sc. 7, lines 50-51. a half-hearted, a
neither hot nor cold, a good Lord and good devil policy. He may try to avoid
giving offense to any, and thus succeed in pleasing none; a policy which no
man or party can pursue without inviting and earning the scorn and con-
tempt of all honest men and of all honest parties.
Thirdly. He may decide to accept the Mississippi plan of conducting
elections at the south; encourage violence and crime, elevate to office the
men whose hands are reddest with innocent blood; force the negroes out of
southern politics by the shotgun and the bulldozer’s whip; cheat them out of
the elective franchise; suppress the Republican vote; kill off their white
Republican leaders and keep the south solid; and keep its one hundred and
fifty-three electoral votes,13This total represents the electoral votes in 1884 of all of the former slave states including West Virginia. Burnham, , 889. obtained thus by force, fraud, and red-handed
violence, ready to be cast for a Democratic candidate in 1888. This might
be acceptable to a certain class of Democrats at the south, but the Demo-
crats of the north would abhor and denounce it as a bloody and hell black
policy. It would hurl the party from power in spite of the solid south, and
keep it out of power another four and twenty years.
Fourthly. He may sustain a policy of absolute fidelity to all the require-
ments of the constitution as it is, and, as John Adams said of the declaration
of independence, he may bravely say to the south and to the nation: “Sink
or swim, survive or perish, I am for the constitution in all parts! I will be
true to my oath, and I will, to the best of my ability, and to the fullest extent
of my power, defend, protect, and maintain the rights of all citizens,
without regard to race or color.”
There can be no doubt as to which of these methods of treating the
southern question is the most honest and safe one. There may be many
wrong ways for individuals or nations to pursue, but there is but one right
way, and it remains to be seen if this is the one the present administration
will adopt and pursue. Left to the promptings of his own heart and his own
view of his constitutional duties, and to his own sense of the requirements
of consistency, and even expediency, I firmly believe that President
Cleveland would do his utmost to protect and defend the constitutional
rights of all classes of citizens. But he is not left to himself, and may adopt a
different policy.
One thing seems plain, which it is well for all parties to know and
consider. It is this: There are 7,000,000 of colored citizens now in this
republic. They stand between the two great parties—the Republican party
and the Democratic party—and whichever of these two parties shall be
most just and true to these 7,000,000 may safely count upon a long lease of
power in this republic. It is not their votes alone that will tell. There is deep
down among the people of this country a love of justice and fair play, and
that fact will tell. It is now as it was in the time of war, and it will be so in all
time. The party which takes the negro on its side will triumph. The world
moves, and the conditions of success and failure have changed.
Formerly devotion to slavery was the condition upon which the success
of the Democratic party was based. But time and events have swept away
this abhorred condition. Liberty, not slavery, is now the autocrat of the
republic. Neither politics nor religion can succeed in the future by pander-
ing to the prejudices arising out of slavery. Let the great Democratic party
realize this fact, and shape its policy in accordance with it; let it do justice
to the negro, and it will certainly succeed itself in power four years hence,
and long years after.
On the contrary, if it forgets the nation’s progress, falls back into its old
ruts, and seeks success on the old conditions; if it forgets that slavery has now
become an anachronism, a superstition of the past, having no proper relation
to the age and body ofour times. it will be ignominiously driven from place
and power four years hence, and no arm can, or ought to, save it.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which,
Taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”14, act 4, sc. 2, lines 294-95.
This tide is now rising at the feet of President Cleveland and his
administration, and, as l have said, it remains to be seen if it will be wisely
taken at the flood. Depend upon it, if the Democratic party does not avail
itself of the colored man’s support the Republican party certainly will. That
party is still the colored man’s party and it will be all the more likely to
consider the claims of the colored man, in view of its late defeat, and the
causes by which that defeat was brought about. Twelve hundred more
colored votes in the state of New York would have saved that party from
defeat.
Unless the ballot is protected better than heretofore the Augusta speech
of the Hon. James G. Blaine, delivered after the election, will be the
keynote of the Republican campaign four years hence.15On the evening of 18 November 1884, local friends and supporters of James G. Blaine came to his home in Augusta, Maine, to offer consolation for his defeat in the presidential election. Blaine thanked his visitors and delivered a short address that attracted national publicity. Blaine congratulated Grover Cleveland on his victory but warned that the transfer of the White House to the Democrats was “a great national misfortune" because of the southern control over that party. Blaine claimed that the southern Democrats had unjustly intimidated over a million black voters away from the polls and thereby carried enough states to steal the close election. These practices amounted to “the rule of a minority," in Blaine's estimation, which gave the southern white voter disproportionate political power. New York , 19 November 1884; David Saville Muzzey, (New York, 1934), 325. There is only one
way to prevent the success of the Republican party if that issue is permitted
to be raised. The northern people were sound for free soil; sound for free
speech; sound for the Union; sound for reconstruction in other days, and
they will be sound for justice and liberty and a free ballot to the newly
enfranchised citizens when that issue shall be fairly presented as a living
issue between the two contending parties.
The great mistake made by the leaders of the Republican party during
the late canvass was the failure to recognize the facts now stated, and their
refusal to act upon them. They had become tired of the old issues and
wanted new ones. They made their appeal to the pocket of the nation, and
not to the heart of the nation. They attended to the mint, anise, and cum-
min16A paraphrase of Matt. 23: 23. of politics, but omitted the weightier matters of the law—judgment,
mercy, and faith. They were loud for the protection of things, but silent for
the protection of men. These things they ought to have done and not left the
other undone.
The idea that righteousness exalteth a nation, and that sin is a reproach
to any people,17A close paraphrase of Prov. 14: 34. was, for a time, lost sight of. The all engrossing thought of
the campaign was a judicious, discriminating protective tariff. The great
thing was protection to the wool of Ohio; to the iron of Pennsylvania, and
to American manufactures generally. Little was said, thought, or felt about
national integrity, the importance of maintaining good faith with the freed-
men or the Indian, or the protection of the constitutional rights of American
citizens, except where such rights were in no danger.
The great thing to be protected was American industry against com-
petition with the pauper labor of Europe—not protection of the starving
labor of the south. The body of the nation was everything; the soul of the
nation was nothing. It did not appear from the campaign speeches that it
was important to protect and preserve both, or that the body was not more
dependent upon bread for life than was the soul dependent upon truth,
justice, benevolence, and good faith for health and life. In the absence of
these, the soul of the nation starves, sickens, and dies. It may not fall at
once upon the withdrawal of these, but persistent injustice will, in the end,
do its certain work of moral destruction. No nation, no party, no man can
live long and flourish on falsehood, deceit, injustice, and broken pledges.
Loyalty will perish where protection and good faith are denied and with-
held, and nothing other than this should be expected either by a party, a
man, or by a government. On the other hand, where good faith is main-
tained, where justice is upheld, where truth and right prevail, the govem-
ment will be like the wise man’s house in Scripture—the winds may blow,
the rains may descend, the flood may come and beat upon it, but it will
stand, because it is founded upon the solid rock of principle.18Douglass adapts Matt. 7: 24-25. I speak this,
not only for the Republican party, but for all parties. Though I am a party
man, to me parties are valuable only as they subserve the ends of good
government. When they persistently violate the fundamental rights of the
humblest and weakest in the land I scout them, despise them, and leave
them.
We boast of our riches, power, and glory as a nation, and we have
reason to do so. But what is prosperity, what is power, what is national
glory, when national honor, national good faith, and national protection to
the rights of our citizens are denied? Of what avail is citizenship and the
elective franchise where a whole people are deliberately abandoned to
anarchy by the government under which they live, and told they must
protect themselves from violence as best they may, for, practically, this is
just what the American government has said to the colored and white
Republican voters of the south during the last eight years. Minister Lowell
was accused of not protecting the rights of Irish-Americans in England,19Poet, essayist, and former abolitionist James Russell Lowell (1819-91) represented the United States as ambassador to Great Britain from January 1880 to June 1885. The most serious international controversy Lowell faced during his diplomatic career in London concerned the Fenian agitation. A number of naturalized Irish-American citizens had returned to the British Isles to engage in this agitation and been arrested under the provisions of the “Coercive Act" of 1881, which suspended the right of habeas corpus for those accused of treasonable activity in Ireland. Although in favor of Home Rule, Lowell felt little sympathy for the violent tactics of these Irish Nationalists and made only pro forma protests against their long incarceration without trial. For this relative inaction, he received the condemnation of Irish-Americans and Democratic politicians who demanded his recall. To soothe the mounting tension between the two nations, the Gladstone government expelled the Irish-American Fenian suspects. Although Lowell had privately preferred Cleveland over Blaine in the 1884 presidential election, he was nonetheless replaced as ambassador early in the Democratic administration. Martin Duberman, (Boston, 1966); Edward Everett Hale, (Boston, 1899); , 4: 39-42.
and our ships are just now ordered to Panama to look after the interests of
American citizens in Central America.20In late 1884 the radical wing of Colombia's Liberal party revolted against the government of Rafael Nunez who had been elected by a coalition of moderate Liberals and the Conservative party. The Colombian govemment recalled most of its troops from the Panamanian Isthmus to defeat the uprising. Local Liberal leaders took this opportunity to seize control of Panama City on the Pacific coast and Colon on the Atlantic. In Colon, the rebels took the U.S. consul and two naval officers hostage and threatened the property of the U.S.-owned Panama Railroad and the French company attempting to dig an interoceanic canal. U.S. naval ships in the area immediately landed sailors and marines on both coasts and a task force arrived at Colon on 10 April 1885 with an additional battalion of marines. The U.S. commander on the scene, Rear Admiral James Jouett, declined the rebels’ request for aid in declaring Panama independent of Colombia. Instead Jouett's force retained control of the railroad and key cities until loyal Colombian troops arrived to suppress the revolt. Jesus Maria Henao and Gerardo Arrubla, , trans. and ed. J. Fred Rippy (Chapel Hill, 1938), 501-03; Walter LaFeber, (Ithaca, N.Y.. 1963), 51; David McCullough, (New York, 1977), 174-78; , 179. This is all right, but when and
where have our army and navy gone to protect the rights of American
citizens at home? To say, “I am a Roman citizen!” could once arrest the
bloody scourge and cause the brutal tyrant to turn pale. But who cares now
for the citizenship of any American Republican, black or white, in Mis-
sissippi or South Carolina? We are rich and powerful, but we should
remember that the whole vast volume of human history is dotted all along
with the wrecks of nations which have perished amid wealth, luxury, and
splendor. What doth it profit a nation to gain the whole world if it shall lose
its own soul?21Douglass paraphrases Mark 8: 36. Henry Clay, in 1839, made an elaborate defense of the right
to hold property in man.22Douglass alludes to Henry Clay's address on the subject of antislavery petitions delivered in the U.S. Senate on 7 February 1839. , 25th Cong., 3d sess., 357-58. Two hundred years of legislation has sanctioned
and identified negro slaves as property. When warned by anti-slavery men
of the dreadful consequences of perpetuating slavery, he said that that
warning had been given fifty years before, and that it had been answered by
fifty years of unexampled prosperity. His idea was that if slavery were a
curse God would not allow a nation that upheld it to prosper. The argument
was sophistical, but it contained a great truth after all, and time only was
required to verify it. He forgot that God reigns in eternity; that space is
sometimes given for repentance. He did not remember, as Jefferson did,
that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.23Douglass paraphrases a passage from Thomas Jefferson, , ed. William Peden (1787; Chapel Hill, 1955), 163.
Had Mr. Clay lived to see, as we have seen, the union of his beloved
country rent asunder at the center, and hostile armies composed of his
beloved countrymen on the field of battle, amid dust, smoke, and fire,
blowing each other to pieces from the cannon’s mouth; had he seen five
hundred thousand of the youth and flower of both sections of this land cut
down by the sword and flung down into bloody graves; had he seen in the
wake of this fratricidal war the smoldering ruins of noble towns and cities,
and the nation staggering under a debt heavier than a mountain of gold; had
he seen the sullen discontent and deadly hate which survived the war, and
traced all these calamities and more, as he must do, to the existence of
slavery, he would, in all the bitterness of his soul, have cursed the day when
he poured out his eloquence in defence of that system which brought upon
his country these accumulated horrors.
The lesson of this national experience is in place to-day, and it would
be well for this nation to study and learn it. Look abroad! What rocks
Europe to-day? What causes the emperor of all the Russias to be uneasy on
his pillow? What makes Austria tremble? Why does England start up
frantically at midnight and search her premises? You know and I know
aggrieved classes among them, who have just ground of complaint against
their governments.
Now fellow-citizens, let me speak plainly. This is an age when men go
to and fro in the earth, and knowledge increases; oppressed peoples all over
the world are protesting with earthquake emphasis against all forms of
injustice, some by one means and some by another. Examples, like certain
diseases, are contagious. Railroads, steam navigation, electric wires,
newspapers, and traveling emissaries are abroad. Can you be quite sure that
the oppressed laborers in this country, white and colored, will not some day
make common cause and learn some of the dangerous modes of protest
against injustice adopted in other countries? I deal in no threats, for myself
or for any of my countrymen, and am only for peaceful methods; but I say
to all oppressors, “Have a care how you goad and imbrute the colored man
of the south!” He is weak, but not powerless. He is submissive to wrongs,
but not insensible to his rights. He is hopeful, but not incapable of despair.
He can endure, but even to him may come a time when he shall think
endurance has ceased to be a virtue. All the world is a school, and in it one
lesson is just now being taught in letters of fire and blood, and that is, the
utter insecurity of life and property in the presence of an aggrieved class.
This lesson can be learned by the ignorant as well as by the wise. Who can
blame the negro if, when he is driven from the ballot-box, the jury-box, and
the school-house, denied equal rights on railroads and steamboats, called
out of his bed at midnight and whipped by regulators, compelled to live in
rags and wretchedness, and his wages kept back by fraud, denied a fair trial
when accused of crime, he shall imitate the example of other oppressed
classes and invoke some terrible explosive power as a means of bringing
his oppressors to their senses, and making them respect the claims of
justice. This would indeed be madness, but oppression will make even a
wise man mad.24A close paraphrase of Eccles. 7: 7.
It should not be forgotten that the negro is not what he was twenty years
ago. Kossuth25Louis Kossuth. once said that bayonets think. The negro is beginning to
think. Years ago a book had as little to say to him and had as little meaning
for him as a brick. It was then a thing of darkness and silence. Now it is a
thing of light and speech. Education, the sheet anchor of safety to society
where liberty and justice are secure, is a dangerous thing to society in the
presence of injustice and oppression.
I pursue this thought no further. A hint to the wise ought to be suffi-
cient. Let not my words be construed as a menace, but taken as I mean them
as a warning; not interpreted as inviting disaster, but considered as de-
signed to avert disaster.
Fellow-citizens, many things calculated to make us thoughtful have
occurred since I addressed you on an occasion like this, two years ago; but
nothing has occurred which ought to make us more thoughtful than the
recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the civil rights
bill. That decision came upon the country like a clap of thunder from a clear
sky. It came without warning. It was a surprise to enemies and a bitter
disappointment to friends. Had the bench been composed of Democratic
judges some such a decision might have come upon us without producing
any very startling effect. But the fact was otherwise. This blow was dealt us
in the house of our friends.26Douglass adapts Zech. 13: 6. The bench was composed of nine learned
Republican judges, and of these nine honorable men only one came to our
help, I mean Honorable Justice John M. Harlan. He stood up for the rights
of colored citizens as those rights are defined by the fourteenth amendment
of the constitution of the United States.
It was a magnificent spectacle, this grand representation of American
justice standing alone, and the country will not soon forget it. Without
meaning any disrespect to the Supreme Court, or reflecting upon the purity
of its motives, I must say here, as l have said elsewhere, and shall say many
times over if my life is spared, that that decision is the most striking
illustration 1 have ever seen of how it is possible to keep alive the letter of
the law and at the same time stab its spirit to death. Portia strictly construed
the law of Venice for mercy,27Douglass characterizes the pleading of Portia for the life of Antonio before the court of the Duke of Venice in , act 4, sc. 1. and this rule of construction has the approval
of all the ages, but the Supreme Court of the United States construed
American law against the weak and in the interest of prejudice and bru-
tality. Never before was made so clear the meaning of Paul’s saying, “The
letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”28Douglass slightly misquotes 2 Cor. 3: 6.
I am glad, and I know that you are glad, that there was one man on that
bench who had the mind and heart to be as true to liberty in this its day, as
was the old supreme court of slavery in its day. While slavery existed all
presumptions were made in its favor. The obvious intention of the law
prevailed, but now the plain intention of the law has been strangled by the
letter of the law.
The fourteenth amendment of the constitution was plainly intended to
secure equal rights to all citizens of the United States without regard to race
or color, and Congress was authorized to carry out this provision by appro-
priate legislation. But by this decision of the Supreme Court the fourteenth
amendment has been slain in the house of its friends. I have no doubt that
that decision contributed to the defeat of the Republican party in the late
election. I repeat, that decision may well make colored men thoughtful.
Kentucky has done many evil things in her time, but she has also done
many great and good things. She has recently given us a law by which
equal educational advantages have been extended to colored children.
Long ago she gave us James G. Birney, the first abolition candidate for the
presidency of the United States; a former slaveholder, but one who emanci-
pated his slaves on his own motion; a genuine gentleman of the old school,
and one to be gratefully remembered by every friend of liberty in this
country. She has given us Cassius M. Clay, the man who fought his way to
freedom of speech on his native soil. She has given us John G. Fee,29The son of a slaveowning Kentucky planter, John Gregg Fee (1816-1901) became an abolitionist while studying at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati in the early 1840s. Fee quit the New School Presbyterian ministry in 1845 after being censured for making antislavery sermons and began a career as a missionary for the abolitionist American Missionary Association. After preaching in various parts of Kentucky, Fee settled at Berea in Madison County and founded an integrated congregation and college. Frequently shot at and beaten, Fee remained in Kentucky until the violent antiabolitionist reaction that followed John Brown's Harpers Ferry raid. Fee returned to Berea with the Union army in 1861, revived his church and college, and continued to battle for racial equality until his death. Elizabeth S. Peck, (Lexington, Ky., 1955), 2-6; Clifton H. Johnson, “The American Missionary Association, 1846-1861: A Study in Christian Abolitionism" (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1958), 125-31, 455-61; , 6: 310-11; , 24: 301-02. the
earnest and devoted educator of the freedmen. Nor is this all. She has given
us two of the largest hearts and broadest minds of which our country can
boast, men who had the courage of their convictions, and who dared, at the
peril of what men hold most dear, to be true to their convictions. These
strong men, one dead and the other living, are Abraham Lincoln and John
M. Harlan. Abraham Lincoln is already enshrined in the hearts of the
American people, and Justice John M. Harlan will hold a place beside him
in the hearts of his countrymen.
You remember the public meeting held in Lincoln Hall,30This meeting occurred on the evening of 22 October 1883. and the free
expression of opinion upon the unsoundness of the decision of the Supreme
Court on the civil rights bill. You will also remember that the ablest and
boldest word there spoken was from the lips of Robert G. lngersoll,31Best remembered for giving James G. Blaine his nickname, the “plumed knight," in a nominating speech at the 1876 Republican convention. Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-99) was also a well-known advocate of atheism. Bom in Dresden, New York, he accompanied his family to Illinois in 1843. After briefly teaching school, he practiced law together with his brother Ebon lngersoll in Peoria. In 1860 Ingersoll was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress. He served as a colonel in the Union army during the Civil War and at the time converted to the Republican party. From 1867 to 1869 lngersoll held the appointed office of Illinois attomey general. Douglass first met lngersoll in the late 1860s when he took Douglass into his home as a guest after all Peoria hotels had refused him a room. lngersoll had a lucrative legal career in addition to receiving record fees for lectures on “free thought" and other topics. A powerful and witty stump speaker, he was a major weapon in the Republican oratorical arsenal in elections during the 1880s and 1890s. His condemnation of the Supreme Court ruling overturning the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was consistent with his long history of opposition to racial and religious discrimination. Douglass, , 507-08, 564; C[larence] H[enley] Cramer, (Indianapolis, 1952); , 3: 348. a
man everywhere spoken against as an infidel and a blasphemer. Well, my
friends, better be an infidel and a so-called blasphemer than a hypocrite
who steals the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.
Infidel though Mr. Ingersoll may be called, he never turned his back
upon his colored brothers, as did the evangelical Christians of this city on
the occasion of the late visit of Mr. Moody.32Lay evangelist Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-99) was bom in Northfield, Massachusetts, and worked as a store clerk in Boston in his youth. In 1856 he moved to Chicago where he soon amassed a sizable fortune in the shoe business. Soon after his westward move, Moody became active in the missionary and Sunday school programs of the Young Men‘s Christian Association. During the Civil War, he served as a fundraiser and administrator for the United States Christian Commission. In 1873-75, Moody made a highly successful evangelical tour of the British Isles and after his return home launched a similar mission across the United States. Moody had opposed segregated services during his first preaching in the South in 1876 but criticism from white church leaders caused him to conform thereafter to local racial practices. Moody conducted a brief revival effort in Washington, D.C., on 16-20 January 1885 but blacks were barred from the First Congregational Church where his principal services were held. Moody denied responsibility for this discrimination when he preached short sermons at several black Washington churches during the visit. Washington , 16, 19, 20 January 1885; Washington , 19 January 1885; Washington , 24 January 1884; James F. Findlay, Jr., (Chicago, 1969); , 4: 376; , 7: 244; , 13: 103-06. Of all the forms of negro hate
in the world save me from that one which clothes itself with the name of the
loving Jesus, who, when on earth, especially identified himself with the
lowest classes of suffering men, and the proof given of his Messiahship
was that the poor had the Gospel preached unto them. The negro can go
into the circus, the theater, the cars, and can be admitted into the lectures of
Mr. Ingersoll, but cannot go into an Evangelical Christian meeting.
I do not forget that on the occasion of the civil rights meeting I have
mentioned, one evangelical clergyman, a real man of God, gave to the
gospel trumpet a certain sound. The religion of Dr. John E. Rankin,33Jeremiah Eames Rankin. like
the love of his Redeemer, is not bounded by race or color, but takes in the
whole human family. No truer man than he ever ascended a Washington
pulpit.
In conclusion, let me say one word more of the soul of the nation and of
the importance of keeping it sensitive and responsive to the claims of truth,
justice, liberty, and progress. In speaking of the soul of the nation I deal in
no cant phraseology. I speak of that mysterious, invisible, impalpable
something which underlies the life alike of individuals and of nations, and
determines their character and destiny.
It is the soul that makes a nation great or small, noble or ignoble, weak
or strong. It is the soul that exalts it to happiness, or sinks it to misery.
While it modifies and shapes all physical conditions, it is itself superior to
all such conditions. It is the spiritual side of humanity. Fire cannot burn it,
water cannot quench it. Though occult and impalpable, it is just as real as
granite or iron. The laws of its life are spiritual, not carnal, and it must
conform to these laws or it starves and dies. The outward semblance of it
may survive for a time, just as ancient temples and old cathedrals may stand
long after the spirit that inspired them has vanished. But they, too, will
molder to ruin and vanish. The life of the nation is secure only while the
nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous; for upon these conditions depends
the life of its life.
A few years ago a terrible and desolating fire swept over the proud
young city of Chicago and left her architectural splendors in ashes. In a few
hours her “cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces”34Douglass slightly misquotes , act 4, sc. 1, line 152. and solemn tem-
ples crumbled to dust, and were scattered to the four winds of heaven, so
that no man could find them, but there remained the invisible soul of a great
people, full of energy, enterprise, and faith, and hence, out of the ashes and
hollow desolation, a grander Chicago than the one destroyed arose “as if
by magic.”
“What constitutes a state?
Not high raised battlements, or labored mound,
Thick walls or moated gate;
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride.
No, men; high-minded men!
With power as far above dull brutes endued,
In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude;
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain.” 35Douglass recites lines 1-6 and 9-14 of “An Ode in Imitation of Alcaeus” by English poet William Jones (1746-94). , 13 vols. (London, 1807), 10: 389-90.