FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO CHARLES SUMNER

Washington[, D.C.] 5 Jan[uary] 1871.

HON: CHAS: SUMNER:

MY DEAR SIR:

I have your letter of to day.¹Sumner’s letter to Douglass of 6 January 1871 has not survived. In answer I have to say—I have said many
things in your honor but I remember no word I ever uttered of this character that I would now recall. No line of love and confidence that I would
now erase. What you have been to me and to my oppressed race during
the long years of your public life, you are still recognized to be: higher
than the highest[,]better than the best of all our statesmen. I have no fear
that you will ever be less than this in my own heart, nor in that of my
people. The Article to which you take exception was written in the inter-

of peace between you and the President—and not in furtherance of the
scheme of of San Domingo. I reserve my sentiments for the
moment on that subject.²In his annual message to Congress in December 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant advocated the annexation of the Dominican Republic by the United States. Secretary of State Fish then worked with Senator Oliver P. Morton of Indiana to craft a congressional resolution authorizing the dispatch of a commission to travel to the Caribbean to gather information regarding the feasibility of annexation. Charles Sumner, who strongly opposed this policy, delivered an angry address in the Senate on 21–22 December 1870, to which Grant’s allies Roscoe Conkling and George Edmunds immediately responded. Sumner had his speech published under the title , with a few additional arguments added and most of his opponents’ interjections expunged. Observing this growing feud within the Republican party, Douglass published Grant’s message in the without commenting on the annexation issue. The paper never published Sumner’s speech but did reprint some stories from other newspapers on the intraparty controversy. In the ’s 5 January 1871 issue, Douglass published an editorial, “Let Us Have Peace,” that decried “the intense personal feelings brought into this debate,” because they threatened “to do more to weaken the Republican party than the best contrived assaults of all the Democracy combined.” In his next issue, Douglass endorsed the proposed annexation, on the condition that it be done “without dishonor, rapine, and bloodshed.” Douglass advised readers that because of Sumner’s experience in foreign relations, the senator’s warnings be “listened to with utmost deference upon this subject.” , 8 December 1870, 5, 12 January 1871; Calhoun, , 295–98; Beverly Wilson Palmer, ed., , 2 vols. (Boston, 1990), 2: 533–34. The point at which I thought you bitterly severe
upon the President was where you exposed his ignorance in regard to the
names of Senate Committees, and more especially where you associate
his name with the infamous names of Pierce, Buchanan and Johnson.³Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson.
These names in the minds of all loyal and liberty loving men stand under
the heaviest reproach—and I candidly think you did wrong to place Grant
in that infamous category even by implication.

I may be wrong—but I do not at present see any good reason for
degrading Grant in the eyes of the American people. Personally, he is
nothing to me, but as the president, the Republican President—of the
country—I am anxious if <it> can be done to hold him in all honor.

But I am free, I am slave to no man—and if the future shall show that
General Grant is unworthy—I will join with the “”⁴The New York was started in 1859 by Alexander Cummings, the former publisher of the Philadelphia , as a daily religious paper. The paper attempted to elevate the moral standards of New York City journalism but ran into trouble in May 1864 when its editors and proprietors were arrested for printing a forged proclamation of President Lincoln’s. After passing through the hands of multiple owners, it eventually was turned into a partisan newspaper at the hands of Manton Marble. In the presidential campaign of 1868, it editorialized heavily in support of Horatio Seymour, of New York, the Democratic presidential candidate. Frederick Hudson, (New York, 1873), 667–76. the “”⁵In 1833, Benjamin Day founded the New York as the city’s first penny paper. While not an official organ of any political party, it became most popular among the Democratic working class. In 1868 the well-known Republican editor Charles A. Dana bought the paper and immediately claimed that the would remain politically independent. But Dana, a Republican, had purchased the paper with the aid of Radical Republican stockholders, and many believed he would transform the into a Republican publication. Initially, Dana walked a fine line between promoting the interests of his financial backers and those of his Democratic readers. For example, the supported Grant for president in 1868 but did so while maintaining journalistic independence. In the following years, Dana decided to appeal more to his Democratic audience. The began criticizing the Grant administration and increasingly published Democratic-leaning editorials. While the remained nominally independent, most of the public viewed it as a Democratic paper. James Harrison Wilson, (New York, 1907), 389, 404; Frank M. O’Brien, (New York, 1918); Janet E. Steele, (Syracuse, N.Y., 1993), xi, 5–6, 79–86, 93, 99, 102, 114.—
and the whole Democratic party in denouncing him.

I have to thank you for a copy of your speech on the San Domingo
question. I heard every word of it—and would go many miles to hear a
similar effort. It has been many years since I have seen you so roused, and
so terribly effective. Your printed speech grand and powerful as it is, falls
short of the speech as heard from the Gallery, where voice, manner and
action united to give it force and effect.

But my dear Sir: I come not now to praise your effort—but simply to
tell you, at your own request wherein I thought you to blame. I have done
this, and have no business further to take your time.

When you speak again I shall take it as a favor that you let me know
that I may hear you.

I return here with letters of Messrs Garrison and Purvis⁶Douglass might be referring to a letter from Garrison to Sumner dated 26 December 1870. In the letter, Garrison discusses President Grant’s desire to annex San Domingo. A letter from this time period from Robert Purvis has not been found. Merrill and Ruchames, , 6: 594; Harold T. Pinkett, “Efforts to Annex Santo Domingo to the United States, 1866–1871,” , 26: 40–41 (January 1941). which you
have done me kindness to allow me to peruse.

With unabated confidence, respect and love, your friend.

FREDERICK DOUG LASS

PLSr: Charles Sumner Correspondence, MH-H.