“What Mr. Douglass Says”: An Interview Given In Washington, D.C., on May 12, 1877
“WHAT MR. DOUGLASS SAYS”: AN INTERVIEW GIVEN
IN WASHINGTON, D.C., ON 12 MAY 1877
Washington National Republican, 13 May 1877.
With so much controversy having arisen concerning his “Our National Cap-
ital” lecture, Douglass publicly responded to his critics upon returning to
Washington, D.C., from his trip to Philadelphia. On 12 May 1877, he granted
a brief interview to a reporter for the Washington National Republican in
which he claimed that the press had badly distorted the contents of his lecture.
On the same day, he sent letters to the National Republican and the Wash-
ington Evening Star, calling the charges against him “malicious and silly.”
(See Appendix D.) When Douglass refused requests from the Washington
press to publish the full text of “Our National Capital,” they continued their
attacks on him. The number of signatures on the petition calling for his
removal reportedly surpassed twenty thousand. The controversy attracted
nationwide attention and a number of northern newspapers came to Doug-
lass’s support, including the New York Times, the New York Tribune, the
Syracuse Journal, and the Philadelphia Press. A Times correspondent
claimed that white Washingtonians had been aroused because “Mr. Douglass
reminded them that they were rebels and slave dealers in the prehistoric ages.”
Douglass believed the favorable northern newspaper comments “redeemed
my lecture from the curse of popular wrath and largely set me in saf[e]ty from
those who have been puffing at me with might and main.” When the local
businessmen who had posted bond for Douglass’s performance as marshal
refused to withdraw their support, the controversy began to cool. President
Rutherford B. Hayes maintained strict silence concerning the anti-Douglass
petitions he received, and the controversy had died out by early June. In Life
and Times, Douglass recalled that the “violent hostility kindled against me
was singularly evanescent. It came like a whirlwind, and like a whirlwind
departed.” Syracuse (N.Y.) Journal, 12 May 1877; New York Times, 13, 18,
19, 31 May, 1 June 1877; ChR, 17, 24 May 1877; Douglass, Life and Times,
463—67; Douglass to the Editor of the Washington Evening Star, 12 May
1877, in Washington Evening Star, 12 May 1877; Douglass to Grace Green-
wood, 20 May 1877, Alexander Gumby Papers, NNC; Douglass, Life and
Times, 463-67, 469-70; Holland, Colored Orator, 341-42; “Two Letters of
Frederick Douglass,” JNH, 36: 80-83 (January 1951).
When Marshal Frederick Douglass returned to the city yesterday he found
that the feeling and indignation among Washington people, aroused by his
remarks concerning them in his lecture delivered in Baltimore last Tuesday
evening, had not abated one whit. It will take a positive denial that he
expressed such sentiments as he is reported to have spoken to satisfy the
great body of the people.
The petitions which are being circulated asking for his removal re-
ceived hundreds of additional signatures yesterday. When Mr. Douglass
appeared at the City Hall yesterday he was approached by many of his
acquaintances upon the subject, but, being busy, gave little satisfaction to
any one. A reporter of THE REPUBLICAN met Mr. Douglass coming out of
the east wing of the building.
“Well, Mr. Douglass, I see that you have returned,” was the reporter’s
salutation.
“Yes, sir,” replied Mr. Douglass; “and I find that I have been receiving
a pretty warm scathing during my absence.”
“Will you tell me something about that lecture, and what are the facts
of your speaking ill or good of this city?”
“In the first place I am busy now and have not much time to say
anything. I was just starting away on some important business when I met
you. But I will say this. Much injustice has been done me in the published
reports of the lecture that I delivered. I don’t say that it was intentional, yet
it is nevertheless true. They have put in all the bad that was spoken, and left
out all the good or words of commendation for the city and its residents.
With the bad there were qualifying statements that have been omitted, and
which if they had been published would have shown quite a different
coloring of the picture than it now presents. I did not refer to or speak of the
residents here as scallawags,1Political opponents called southern white supporters of the Reconstruction-era Republican party by this epithet. Before the Civil War the popular use of the expression was a derogatory term synonymous with rascal or loafer. Mathews, Dictionary of Americanisms, 2: 1465. lazy and indolent. I had reference and so
expressed myself to the office seekers and carpet-baggers who visit here
seeking to obtain official positions. In the same way other sayings have
been misquoted, and I am accused of uttering, and it is so published, words
that never passed my lips. Why, I delivered this same lecture here two years
ago in Uniontown: it was published in full at the time and favorably
commented upon by the papers. The mistake now is that I have been
incorrectly reported. If they had taken the trouble to publish in connection
with what they did the parts left out, then the public would have seen a far
different story than they did read, and realize that I was as much a friend to
the District and its residents as any person living here.”
“They say that you started out on a lecturing tour?”
“Pshaw! I have no time to go lecturing now. I was merely going to
Philadelphia to attend the opening of the exhibition2Douglass was among a long list of dignitaries, including Presidents Grant and Hayes, who journeyed to Philadelphia for the dedication on 10 May 1877 of the Main Building of the former Centennial fairgrounds at Fairmount Park as the site for a new international exhibition. New York Tribune, 11 May 1877. and stopped by the
way, by invitation, to lecture for a society in Baltimore for a benevolent
object. But I cannot talk longer now.”
Mr. Douglass promised to give a more extended statement, and hurry-
ing into his buggy drove away. The more extended statement consists of the
card published below.
In order that perfect justice might be rendered Mr. Douglass, and his
lecture placed before the public as he delivered it, a verbal request was
made of Mr. Douglass to furnish the lecture to THE REPUBLICAN for
publication, but this he declined to do. Last evening the following commu-
nication was sent to Mr. Douglass from this office signed by the editor.3The correspondence between Douglass and the editor of the Washington Daily National Republican appears in Appendix D.