Measuring the Progress of the Colored Race: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 22, 1886
MEASURING THE PROGRESS OF THE COLORED RACE:
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS,
ON 22 MAY 1886
Unidentified newspaper clipping, [Boston(?)], 23 May 1886(?)], Subject File, reel 19,
frames 534-35, FD Papers, DLC; and Springfield (Mass.) , 23 May 1886. Other
texts in Boston , 23 May 1886; Boston , 24 May 1886; Cleveland
, 12 June 1886.
While in Boston to attend a meeting of the New England Woman Suffrage
Association, Douglass received numerous invitations to social gatherings.
Among the most widely reported of these was a dinner in his honor given by
the Massachusetts Club at Young’s Hotel on the afternoon of 22 May 1886.
After dinner, the club’s president, former Massachusetts governor William
Claflin introduced Douglass. A reporter for the Springfield de-
scribed Douglass’s appearance as a “broad-shouldered, black-clad figure,
surmounted by a massive head whose proportions are made to look even more
noble than they are by the mass of flowing white locks. His face is becoming
considerably wrinkled.” Following Douglass’s address, State Treasurer Alanson
W. Beard, Lieutenant Governor Oliver Ames, and General John A. Swift
spoke briefly. The strongly partisan tone of Douglass’s remarks received some
criticism in the press but the Cleveland claimed that the speech “gives
our sentiments to a ‘T.’ . . ." William Claflin to Douglass, 6, 11, 21 May
1886, General Correspondence File, reel 4, frames 339-40, 343, 352, James
Jeffrey Roche to Douglass, 24 May 1886, General Correspondence File, reel
4, frame 353, FD Papers, DLC; Douglass to William Claflin, 8 May 1886,
William Claflin Papers, OFH; Cleveland , 29 May, 26 June 1886;
Holland, , 360-61.
Gentlemen: I now begin to understand what it means to be invited to dine
with the Massachusetts Club. I thought my mission here today was gastronomical
instead of oratorical or speechmaking, but I am convinced by
the elaborate and eloquent manner in which I have been brought to your
attention by Gov. Claflin1Born in Milford, Massachusetts, William Claflin (1818-1905) briefly attended Brown University but withdrew from college to assist in his father‘s shoe and boot manufacturing business. From 1837 to 1844, Claflin operated his own shoemaking fimi in St. Louis, Missouri, where his purchase and manumission of a slave family put him in disfavor with proslavery elements in the community. He returned to Massachusetts to become a partner in his father's business and became politically active. A founder of the Free Soil party in Massachusetts, Claflin served in the state house (1849-52). As a Republican, he won terms as state senator (1859-61), lieutenant governor (1866-68), and governor (1869-71). Claflin later served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1877-81). Robert Sobel and John Raimo, eds., , 1789-1978, 4 vols. (Westport, Conn., 1978), 2: 709-10; , 1: 119; , 4: 110. that you really, in good earnest, expect me to
make a speech—a little speech. I have so seldom dined in my life (laughter)
that I am at a loss to know how to make an after-dinner speech. I have
heard say that speeches should be witty, and I am no wit. l have heard say
that they should be short. 1 never made a short speech in my life (applause
and laughter) with which I was satisfied (great laughter), and I don’t know
that I ever made a long speech with which anybody else was satisfied.
(Laughter and applause.)
This Day Will Be Memorable
in my history.†Here the unidentified newspaper clipping [23 May 1886(?)] reads: “The dining with the Massachusetts Club is a great event in my life, but the mark which will perhaps be remembered as made by this day was made this morning when I visited the venerable poet John G. Whittier. He said today that he rejoiced with me that he had lived to see the wonderful changes which have taken place during the past 50 years. They are vast. I remember that 50 or 45 years ago I could not take a railroad car out of Boston without encountering the hostility of the mobocratic spirit that prevailed then." ⟨Dining with the Massachusetts club is a great event. But
the mark longest to be remembered by me was made this morning. I heard
that John G. Whittier, the poet of humanity, was feeble and unless I went to
him at once I should never see him again.2John Greenleaf Whittier lived until 7 September 1892. , 20: 173-76. I was sad. Acting on this
suggestion I made my way to Danvers and had the inexpressible pleasure of
taking the hand of that brilliant man, who has said perhaps more than any
other man for humanity. I found him well and sprightly as a man of 60,
though with the weight of 79. I said: “I come as all others came to you with
nothing to give, all to receive. You are one of those who framed the
constitution of the anti-slavery society in 1833.” He told me of these
beginnings at a time when I was in the bondage of slavery. Said he: “I did
not expect to live to see the slaves emancipated. I thought we would bear
our testimony and later the right would come.” He told me of the burning of
Pennsylvania hall because an abolition society was to meet there. The anti-
slavery society had appointed a meeting there, but when they came and
found it in ashes they did not go away, but amid its ashes they drew up the
constitution.
We rejoiced together over the vast and wonderful changes that have
taken place. Twenty-five years ago I could not have taken a car out of
Boston without being met by the mobocratic spirit.⟩3From the Springfield (Mass.) , 23 May 1886. Then, think of my
being here today, with the best heart and soul of old Massachusetts, the
intelligence, the refinement, the wealth, the political power represented
here, and no man has said to me, “Douglass, get out.” (Laughter and
applause.) Wonderful! I am sometimes asked: “How are your people getting
along in the South?” I am at a loss to know, sometimes, to whom they
refer. (Laughter) Who are my people at the South? I am in a position to
speak more impartially, perhaps, than any man in this room as regards the
merits of the two races, for I occupy a middle position. (Laughter) I don’t
know that any one race has any more right to claim me than another. It is
not my fault. (Laughter) It is purely accidental. (Laughter) I have come to
the conclusion that instead of building up race pride, to be a man is better
than to be a race—to be a man among men. (Applause) (A painter was
painting me to-day and insisted on showing my full face, for that is Ethiopian.
Take my side face, said I, that is Caucasian; though should you try my
quarter face you would find it Indian.⟩4From the Springfield (Mass.) , 23 May 1886. I don’t know that any race can
claim me, but, identified with slaves as I am, I think I know the meaning of
the inquiry. I think it would be as appropriate, though, to ask “How are the
white people of the South getting along?” (applause) as to ask how the
colored people are getting along. The two should go together—one cannot
get along without the other. The blacks cannot get along without the same
progress by the whites, and the whites the blacks; and, on the whole, I think
the blacks are in a position in some respects more favorable to progress than
the whites. They, at least, can work.
They Have Hard Hands,
strong frames, and are accustomed to toil, and the toilers of any country
will, in the end, be uppermost. (Applause) I think we make a mistake
sometimes in estimating the progress of the colored race by measuring
them from the wrong point. They should not be measured from the heights
which you have already attained by a thousand years of civilization. You
have a thousand years of civilization piled up in your brains. You are men
of heads—three-story heads,5Douglass adapts a phrase from Oliver Wendell Holmes's . , 13 vols. (Boston, 1892), 3: 43. I see here, and intelligence looking out at
the windows. (Laughter) We have only had about 20 years of freedom—of
semi-freedom. You should not measure us from the heights, but from the
depths, from which we have come. Measure us from these, and our progress
has been encouraging. Men ask me, in view of the shooting of black
men at Copiah, and Carrolton, and Hamburg,6Douglass refers to episodes of anti-black violence in the South during and after Reconstruction. The incident in Hamburg, South Carolina, occurred on 4 July 1876, after white local officials arrested members of a black militia company on the charge that their drilling had blocked a public highway. A judge ordered the company to disarm and called upon local citizens to assist in enforcing his order. The militia members sought refuge in a nearby building and exchanged fire with white citizens and law enforcement officials for several hours. When they finally subdued the black militia men, local officials summarily executed eight of them. Political violence occurred at Hazelhurst, Copiah County, Mississippi, on 6 November 1883. Elections in the county had been closely contested in the years since the end of Reconstruction, and local Democrats threatened the life of any Republican who intended to vote that year. On election day, J. P. Matthews, a former county sheriff and local Republican leader, voted early at Hazelhurst. On his way out of the polling place, a prominent Democrat shot and killed Matthews with a shotgun. The assassin not only went unpunished but became town marshal shortly thereafter. New York , 16, 29 November, 14 December 1883; , 719-20. and the fact that the men
who do it go unpunished, if I don’t think that the condition of the freedmen
of the South is helpless. I tell them: “Never.” I have seen too much
progress. I have seen prejudices that were deep rooted, uprooted and
removed. I have seen hardships that were imposed removed. I have at last
seen liberty made the law of this land, and being the law, higher than the
public opinion of the people, still the law for the people and the law to
which the people will ultimately approximate. Hence, I am not discouraged.
My friend Buffum7James Needham Buffum. here has seen me in the toils of rowdies, and not
only rowdies but of the authorities, for I have been dragged from railroad
cars, and denied the right to ride on highways or byways, railroads or stage
coaches on equal terms with other people. Now, I look around in vain for
anybody to insult me. (Laughter and applause.) I cannot be discouraged in
view of these things. There is, however, one thing that you gentlemen of
Massachusetts should do, and that I look to you for, and that is, that you
will
Bring This Nation Up
to your constitution and to your laws, and insist upon the enforcement of
the constitution, as Webster would say, “in the fulness of its spirit and of its
letter.” We are now approaching the 100th anniversary of the adoption of
the United States constitution. In that you promised that you would “form
a more perfect union, establish justice, provide for the common defence,
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our posterity.8Douglass slightly misquotes the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution. You have written over the gateway of your
constitution recently that there shall be no discriminations upon citizens on
account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. In the 15th
amendment you have extended the elective franchise to the colored people
as well as the white people of the South. And I look to you—to the
Massachusetts of Sumner, of Andrew, of Garrison9Charles Sumner, John A. Andrew, and William Lloyd Garrison. and of Wendell Phillips
—to insist that this national government make good its pledge to secure
the blessings of liberty, to enforce the constitution of the United States.
There is a chance just now in our national Congress for the development of
a great man. The fact has been alluded to that God in his providence makes
great issues among men, and, to meet those issues, he raises men to
conduct them to a right conclusion.10In introducing Douglass to the Massachusetts Club, William Claflin had declared that crises in national affairs “invariably found a man to fit them," and that Douglass “was a man who had been found to fit one of the most important crises in our history." Boston , 23 May 1886. There is an opportunity for such a
man now. There was on the floor of the Senate a Charles Sumner when we
were in the midst of a great crisis (a man whose greatness in other respects
was only obscured by his greatness in the maintenance of the cause of
liberty and of justice). We want such a man today. Today Ireland has a
Parnell11Born in Avondale, county Wicklow, Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-91) spent four years at Cambridge but received no degree. Elected to Parliament in 1875 on his second attempt, Parnell soon succeeded Isaac Butt as the leader of the Irish members. His obstructionist tactics in Parliament won him the respect and support of all but the most extreme Irish nationalists. Parnell’s followers held the balance of power in Parliament after the 1886 election and forced the liberal govemment of William E. Gladstone to introduce Home Rule legislation. This measure caused a split in the Liberal party and forced Gladstone from office. In 1890 the majority of the Irish parliamentary party members, bowing to pressure from the Catholic hierarchy and from Gladstone, rejected Parnell as their leader in reaction to his being named corespondent in the divorce proceedings of a parliamentary colleague, Willie O'Shea. Parnell died the following year in the midst of a campaign to rally his political supporters against clerical dictation. Joan Haslip, (London, 1936); John S. Crone, (1937; Nendeln, Liechtenstein, 1970), 202; , 15: 322-42. and England a Gladstone.12William Ewan Gladstone. We want a Gladstone. I don’t mean to
say that the material is not there already. I think that Massachusetts is
already very well represented on the floor of the Senate. But I think those
representatives need to
Touch Palms with You
occasionally, and to have the duties of their position forced upon them by
an increasingly warm and determined public sentiment in the right direction.
(Applause) We lost the last election,13Douglass alludes to the presidential election of 1884 in which Democrat Grover Cleveland defeated Republican James G. Blaine. I think, partly because the
campaign was conducted on the idea that the nation is a body, rather than a
soul—it had a pocket, but little heart. We talked tariff, civil service reform,
and many things that concerned our material interests, but I could but ask,
in the language of scripture: “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole
world and lose his own soul?”14Mark 8: 36. What doth it profit a nation though it pile
wealth to the clouds if it parts with its own honor, if it shall prove false to
the great trusts committed to it; if it shall fail to recognize the fact that the
nation has a soul as well as a body. Boston was burned some time ago,15The most recent major fire to strike Boston occurred on 9-10 November 1872. so
it was said. But the soul of Boston was not burned. Boston was not burned.
Events showed that fire could not burn it, for out of the ashes sprung up, not
another Boston, but the same Boston—the enterprise, the energy, the
ambition, the resolution. So here this nation has got a soul, and the soul of
this nation is its honor, and if it fails to fulfill its promises, if it tramples
upon its principles, if it allows 7,000,000 of people, who by the letter of the
law we have enfranchised, to be stripped of that franchise, and to be
stamped in the dust, you will lose your soul. (Applause) We have to
redeem our promises. Mr. Blaine16James G. Blaine. made an excellent speech at Augusta,
after learning the Republican party was defeated. That speech that was
made at the last should have been made at the first.17Douglass adapts Matt. 19: 30, 20: 16; Mark 10: 31; and Luke 13: 30. (Applause and
laughter.) And in my opinion, ifI can read properly the signs of the times,
that speech will be the keynote in the next campaign, and will carry the
Republican party triumphantly to victory. (Applause) John Sherman tried
it in Ohio, and it was followed by victory.18With his term in the U.S. Senate due to expire in the next year, John Sherman campaigned actively for the Ohio Republican party in the state election of fall 1885. At a speech in Lebanon, Ohio, on 8 September 1885, Sherman condemned the abuses of black civil rights by southern Democrats and declared that he "would wave the bloody shirt as long as it remained bloody." After a particularly bitter campaign, Ohio Republicans won a large majority of the seats in the state legislature and chose Sherman for another Senate term. John Sherman, , 2 vols. (Chicago, 1895), 2: 923-43; Theodore E. Burton, (Boston, 1908), 254, 350.
We Shall Try It in 1888,
and I believe it will be followed by victory. But whether victorious or
otherwise, I believe in saying the right word, and insisting upon the right
principle, and leaving the consequences. At Pittsburgh, in 1852, when
Charles Francis Adams was in the chair,19The third son of John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1807-86) was born in Boston but spent much of his childhood at St. Petersburg, Russia, where his father was the U.S. ambassador. After returning to the United States, Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1825 and studied law in the office of Daniel Webster. Entering state politics, he served in the Massachusetts house (1841-43) and senate (1844-45). In 1845 Adams assumed the editorship of the Boston , and three years later, owing to his role in launching the Free Soil party, received its nomination as Martin Van Buren's vice-presidential running mate. Adams served a term in Congress (1859-61) as a Republican before accepting appointment from President Abraham Lincoln to become U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James. Returning from his diplomatic post in May 1868, Adams retired from public life to edit the papers of his father and grandfather. Martin Duberman, (Stanford, Calif., 1960); , 8: 351-53; , 1: 48-52. and we were speaking of numbers
as a means of success, I said then, as I say now, that one man with God
is a majority.20Douglass made approximately this statement in an address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 11 August 1852 to the national convention of the Free Democratic party, chaired by Charles Francis Adams. , 20 August 1852. (Applause) We have been unfortunate in dealing with this
question since the war. Our supreme court at Washington has taken a step,
as I think, in the wrong direction. We have a 14th amendment, intended to
protect men in their civil rights, declaring that “no state shall pass any law
discriminating against any class of citizens of the United States because of
race, color or previous condition.”21Douglass actually combines language from the first sections of both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. That law has been essentially modified
by a late decision of the supreme court of the United States.22A reference to the 15 October 1883 decision of the United States Supreme Court, which overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875 as unconstitutional. 109 US. 3 (1883), 8-26. By that
decision, we see an entire change in the legal hermeneutics that formerly
governed the courts of the United States touching the rights of American
citizens. By that decision an individual of a state may violate the rights of a
colored citizen of the United States and no law can reach him. So long as a
state does not make the discrimination, the people may make all the discriminations
they please. Under the old regime of slavery everything was
taken for granted in favor of slavery, and everything opposed to it was
required to prove itself beyond question; but in this case the opposite theory
of law has been pursued. They say that this 14th amendment was addressed
to the states, and not to the individual citizens of the states. See how
differently the law was construed under the slave power. The fugitive slave
clause of the constitution23Article IV, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution. was held to be an inhibition upon the individuals
of states and bound citizens to assist in catching and sending back
Anthony Burns, Shadrack,24Frederick “Shadrach” Wilkins. George Latimer and others to slavery. That
was no more addressed to the states than this 14th amendment was. The
whole thing has changed. With slavery as the base line one rule is adopted;
with
Liberty as the Base Line
an opposite rule is adopted. I am one of those who pray to my God every
day for a supreme court of the United States that shall be as true to liberty as
ever Judge Taney25Roger B. Taney. was to slavery. (Applause) And it is coming. Although
there are many things to complain of, there is much to rejoice over, and I
rejoice today that we have such men in Congress as Blair of New
Hampshire,26Henry William Blair (1834-1920), born in Campton, New Hampshire, was a reform-minded Republican politician who supported woman's suffrage, temperance, and federal aid to education. He practiced law in Plymouth, New Hampshire, and served as an officer in the Union Army in the Civil War. Blair was a member of the state house and senate before entering the U.S. House of Representatives in 1875. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1879, he won a national reputation as chair of the Committee on Education and Labor. Defeated for a third Senate term in 1891, Blair accepted appointment by President Benjamin Harrison to be minister plenipotentiary to China. The Chinese government rejected his credentials, however, because of Blair’s earlier congressional opposition to Chinese immigration to the United States. He retired from politics after one final term in the U.S. House of Representatives. , 561; , 1: 281; , 1: 458; , 2: 334. and George F. Hoar,27A member of an important Massachusetts political family, George Frisbie Hoar (1826-1904) was the son, brother, father, and uncle of U.S. congressmen. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Hoar practiced law in Worcester, Massachusetts. Originally a Whig, he helped organize the Republican party in Massachusetts. After terms in the state house (1852) and senate (1857), he won four consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1869-77) where he was one of the managers of the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1877, Hoar held that office for the remaining twenty-seven years of his life. , 1060-61; , 3: 220; , 9: 87-88. who is a grand man. I am down there
at Washington and happen to have an Opportunity of seeing how such men
are regarded, how Mr. Hoar is regarded, and I can say to you, sons of
Massachusetts, that Senator Hoar stands among the first men on the floor of
the Senate. (Applause) I see Gov. John D. Long,28Born in Buckfield, Maine, John Davis Long (1838-1915) attended Harvard College and the Harvard Law School. Admitted to the bar in 1861, Long practiced law in Buckfield and then in Boston before embarking on a career in politics. After being defeated as a Democratic candidate for the state legislature in 1871, he joined the Republicans and won terms as a state representative (1875-78), lieutenant governor (1879), governor (1880-82), and U.S. congressman (1883-89). Long returned to the practice of law in Boston but accepted the position of secretary of the navy in William McKinley's administration in 1897. He received considerable praise for the management of that department in the Spanish-American War. Sobel and Raimo, , 2: 713-14; , 1233; , 11: 377. Mr. Ranney,29Born in Townshend, Vermont, Ambrose Arnold Ranney (1821-99) graduated from Dartmouth College in 1844. Admitted to the bar in 1848, Ranney practiced law in Boston and held that city’s corporation counsel post (1855-57). He also served three terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1857, 1863, and 1864) and three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1881-87) as a Republican. Defeated for reelection to Congress, Ranney resumed his legal career in Boston. , 1498; , 5: 180. Mr.
Reed of Maine30Born in Portland, Maine, Thomas Brackett Reed (1839-1902) graduated from Bowdoin College in 1860 and practiced law first in California and then in his native state. He served in the Maine house of representatives (1868-69) and senate (1870) and as state attorney general (1870-72) before beginning a twenty-two-year reign in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1877. A formidable debater, Reed was an important leader of the Republicans in the House and served as the speaker of the Fifty-first, Fifty-fourth, and Fifty-fifth congresses (1889-91, 1895-99). Reed lost the Republican presidential nomination in 1896 to William B. McKinley and opposed the latter's expansionist policies following the Spanish-American War. Samuel W. McCall, (Boston, 1914); , 1506; , 5:211; , 15: 456-69.—they are all big men, and can pass for what they are
worth down there among thoughtful and honorable men capable of judging. Gentlemen, pardon this desultory discourse, but accept my thanks for
your invitation. I am glad that you have given me the opportunity, and that
you have dared to hear me say what I consider should be the keynote of this
nation. (Applause)