The Black People Have Lost a Firm Friend: An Address Delivered in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 1888
THE BLACK PEOPLE HAVE LOST A FIRM FRIEND:
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN WASHINGTON, D.C.,
ON 24 APRIL 1888
Speech File, reel 16, frames 302-05, FD Papers, DLC. Another text in Speech File, reel 16,
frames 297-301 , reel 20, frame 654, FD Papers, DLC.
Shortly after the death of former U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York,
the Bethel Literary and Historical Association organized a memorial service
at Washington’s Metropolitan A.M.E. Church. “A fair-sized audience of
ladies and gentlemen,” the Washington reported,
gathered in the evening on 24 April 1888 to hear Conkling eulogized. The
president of the association, John W. Cromwell, opened the meeting with a
brief address, George W. Jackson read resolutions praising Conkling, and
Douglass delivered a speech seconding the resolutions. Ex-congressman John
R. Lynch of Mississippi, Professor George William Cook of Howard Univer-
sity, James M. Storum, and George W. Arnold followed Douglass with brief
addresses. The meeting adjourned after unanimous adoption of the resolu-
tions. Washington , 22, 25 April 1888; Washington ,
25 April 1888.
Mr. President and Friends: Again we assemble to do honor to the memory
of the dead. Again we sorrow for the loss of a great friend. Many and sad
have been our bereavements of late. The past decade has seen many fires
quenched, many lights extinguished—many noble lives ended. One after
another in rapid succession our great men have passed on from time to the
silent shades of etemity—that boume whence no traveler returns. William
Lloyd Garrison, the acknowledged pioneer of the anti-slavery movement,
seeing his work accomplished in the world, closed his eyes in peace.
Lucretia Mott, whose life of eighty-seven years was a sermon of justice and
mercy, soon followed our pioneer. Wendell Phillips gave fifty years of his
matchless eloquence to our cause, and passed on. Abby Kelly and Stephen
Foster remembered those in bonds as bound with them,1A paraphrase of Heb. 13: 3. and then joined
the procession of our noble dead. Henry Highland Garnet, whose name
will ever be held sacred in the hearts of the colored people of this country,
died in the land of his ancestors?2Henry Highland Garnet died in Liberia on 12 February 1882 soon after arriving to serve as U.S. minister to that nation. , 252-53. No truer man to the cause of his people
ever gave tongue to their wrongs, or more eloquently demanded their
rights.
But outside the ranks of the early abolitionists, with whom it was my
privilege to be a co-worker. and whose death roll I have thus called, death
has been busy with our great men of state—men high in the councils of the
Nation, have appeared and disappeared, like bright stars from the blue
overhanging sky—leaving the places where they shone robed in darkness
and gloom.
It seems only a little while ago that we saw the forms and heard the
voices of Oliver P. Morton and Gen. John A. Logan in the Senate. They
towered among their brother senators in all the vigor and greatness of their
powerful minds. But these great men have gone, and we look around
wondering who among the living will fill their vacant places. With the
logical power of Webster, and the dauntless courage of a hero, defying the
scorn and derision of a venal press, Oliver P. Morton in the open senate,
exposed almost with his latest breath the wrongs inflicted upon the freed-
men. The death of General Grant was among our greatest calamities.
Though no longer in public life and no longer likely to be called to preside
over the destinies of this nation, his living presence exerted a silent but
powerful influence over the country by reason of what he did and attempted
while in power, to protect colored citizens in the exercise of their Constitu-
tional rights. Of John A. Logan it is only needed to say that he was the
dread of traitors, the defender of loyal soldiers, and the true friend of the
newly-made citizens of the Republic. Much was predicated for our cause
on this man’s future. But he, too, in the order of Providence, has laid off his
armor. For one, I thought it had been he, through whom we might regain
the ground lost during the last dozen years.
Only two of the original signers of the Constitution of the American
Anti-slavery Society still survive, and these are Robert Purvis of Pennsyl-
vania and John G. Whittier of Massachusetts, both far beyond their three
score and ten. The leaves are falling all around us, and soon all that remain
must fade and fall.
Truly the retrospect is impressive and solemn. It speaks to us of the
limits of human life, and the transient character of human greatness. This
lesson is marked and emphasized to-night. We are shadowed by the death
of one of America’s greatest men—a man of inflexible will, of unfailing
courage, of high character and splendid endowments; a man whom not
even the recklessness of rivalry, the envy of ambition, or the malice of
discomfitted assailants could accuse of a single act of meanness; a man
who attracted men to him by his fidelity, and won affection from those who
stood near him without prospect of reward. A few hours ago this great man
was with us. We seem even now to see his tall and graceful form moving
through the streets and avenues of this great city, resembling among men
the magnificent dome of the Capitol, under which he once stood and held
the Senate spell-bound by his magical eloquence. He was here upon busi-
ness a few days before he died. His presence here had no political signifi-
cance. He neither sought political allies, nor was sought by them. His
trumpet in regard to politics gave no uncertain sound.3Douglass paraphrases 1 Cor. 14: 8. His political friends
knew him well enough to take him at his word. He was one of those men
who never failed to make himself understood, for to him it was not given by
words to conceal his thoughts. One of the noblest attributes of his character
was his truthfulness. No man ever expected his acts to contradict his words.
Men loved him and trusted him not for prospective benefits, but for the
nobility of his character.
But Roscoe Conkling is dead. We shall never more see his stately
figure among living men. His commanding voice will never more be heard
in the chamber of the United States Senate. His name will never more be
mentioned as a living factor in the politics of New York. His busy brain has
ceased to act. His eloquent voice is silent forever, and his noble form is laid
to rest among those constituents who loved and honored him to the last.
In some respects, Roscoe Conkling resembled Charles Sumner. They
were both tall, strong and symmetrical. A stranger passing them in the
street would naturally turn and look back at them. They were also alike in
the fine culture and finish displayed in their speeches, as well as in the port
and dignity which marked the delivery of their orations in the Senate. They
never made stump speeches to the galleries. Their self-respect made low
devices impossible. In Mr. Conkling this element of his character caused
him to be considered by many as cold, forbidding, imperious and haughty.
But no judgment of any public man could be more erroneous than this
judgment of Roscoe Conkling. While he was not a man to be trifled with,
or with whom any undue liberties could be safely taken, he was yet among
the most amiable of men, a gentleman to whom the humblest might easily
approach. I knew him well. I knew his father before him,4Roscoe Conkling was the youngest son of Alfred Conkling (1789-1874), a prominent federal jurist. Born in Amagansett, Suffolk County, New York, the elder Conkling graduated from Union College and started a law practice in Montgomery County, New York. After one term in Congress (1821-23), he removed to Albany and in 1825 accepted appointment as judge of the U.S. district court for northern New York from President John Quincy Adams. In 1851 Conkling won praise from Douglass for rulings impeding enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. Originally scheduled to preside over the trial of the Jerry Rescuers. Conkling instead received the post of ambassador to Mexico from President Millard Fillmore. He negotiated a treaty with the Mexican government granting a U.S. company the privilege to build a railroad across the isthmus of Tehuantepec but it was shelved and Conkling was recalled at the end of Fillmore's term. From 1853 to 1861, Conkling practiced law in Omaha, Nebraska Territory, and thereafter resided in western New York where he worked closely with Gerrit Smith in temperance campaigns. , 4 September, 30 October 1851; Garrison and Garrison, , 3: 335-37; Jordan, , 3-6; Harold J. Jonas, “Alfred Conkling, Jurist and Gentleman," , 20: 295-305 (July 1939); , 727; , 1: 706; , 11: 487-88. and knowing
both. I can easily see that his stately bearing and his aristocratic manners
were inherited and came down through a long line of good breeding. He
was a gentleman by nature, and no contact or circumstances could divest
him of this high character.
Well, why are we here? What was Roscoe Conkling to us or we to
Roscoe Conkling? He was much to us every way. First, he was an Ameri-
can citizen, and one than whom, none in his day and generation was more
eminent in those qualities which adorn the character of an American cit-
izen. Such a citizen as he was, sheds lustre upon the whole nation, and
upon us, a part of the Nation. For twenty years and during a period the most
critical in the history of the Republic, Roscoe Conkling was in the councils
of the Nation. He was there while the country was rent asunder at the centre
and hostile armies confronted each other: He was there when victory
perched on the banner of the Union and when the sword of rebellion was
surrendered at Appomatox: He was there when the broken Union was to be
reconstructed and he was among the foremost in the demand for an honest
re-construction on the basis of justice and liberty, not less to the black man
than to the white man. He was something to us a[s] citizens and something
to us as a people in a transition state from slavery to freedom. For us his
voice and vote were always freely given.
If in this respect he failed to be recognized as our most conspicuous
advocate it was not because of any want of heart or head, but because the
ground had been covered before. He stood in the shadow of Thaddeus
Stevens, Benjamin F. Wade and Charles Sumner. These older, though not
abler servants of the cause, had achieved a glorious prominence before
Roscoe Conkling came upon the National arena.
Mr. Conkling has been much criticized for resigning his place in the
Senate. But to my mind, this act of his was highly creditable alike to his
head and heart. A man of a less sensitive nature, with a stronger love of
public life, might have consented to remain in office on such conditions as
were offered him. But Mr. Conkling’s sense of what was due alike to
himself and to his constituents, made it impossible for him to retain office
in the circumstances.
To him the case was a plain one. He was made a Senator by the
Legislature of New York. He was in some sense the agent of that body. His
Legislature instructed him to vote for the confirmation of a gentleman for
collector of the Port of New York. He felt he could not honorably obey the
command, and he therefore surrendered the office to which he had been
elected. To all the assaults made upon him for this act he never stopped or
stooped to make reply, defense, or explanation, for he felt that the act was
its own vindication. It was not his quitting the Senate, however, for which
he was most censured, but his effort to be returned to the Senate, and for
this, no word of censure would have been uttered, if he had succeeded. Had
he succeeded, he would have been hailed as a hero. He made the effort at
the instance of friends in whose judgment he confided. They thought he
could be elected. The results showed that they were mistaken, and this is all
there is of that.
But, ladies and gentlemen:
I must retire from this platform. You are to be addressed by gentlemen
of marked ability and eloquence, gentlemen, whom I am as anxious to hear
as I am sure you are. It only remains for me to say, that in the death of
Roscoe Conkling, the country has lost one of its ablest men, one of its most
brilliant orators, and distinguished patriots, and that we, on our part, have
lost a firm friend, an inflexible defender, and a tower of strength. Though
he was no longer in the Senate, though he was outside of the range of
politics, the knowledge that Conkling was alive, that his keen eye was upon
the action of parties and party leaders, that he might possibly be called
again to the front, exerted a beneficent influence on the moral and political
atmosphere of the whole country. Our loss is great. The country’s loss is
great, but let us hope that men will yet be found as true to the cause of
justice, liberty and equality, as any of the great men whose names I have
mentioned, and who now rest from their labors.