Saint Elkville Ills March 30^th 1877.

To Hon. Frederick Douglass U. S. Marshal Washington D. C.

My Dear Sir, it is very gratifying to me to think or know that you have been promoted as U.S. Marshal. over the District of Columbia. By Mr. HayesHayes, Rutherford Birchard

Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822-93), nineteenth president of the United States, had previously served as governor of his home state of Ohio (1867-71) and as a Republican congressman (1865-67). Although Hayes had supported the Radical Reconstruction program while in Congress, events during Grant's administration had convinced him that the remaining southern Republican state governments, led by carpetbaggers and blacks, could no longer sustain themselves even with federal military intervention. As president, Hayes attempted to reinvigorate the southern Republican party through a program of sectional reconciliation aimed at attracting former Whigs and Douglas Democrats into the party. He believed that the goodwill of southern whites was better protection for the political and civil rights of blacks than federal military force. Soon after his inauguration, Hayes ordered U.S. troops in Charleston and New Orleans away from the statehouses and back to their garrisons, causing the Republican governments in South Carolina and Louisiana to collapse in the face of the armed force of their Democratic opponents. Hayes also appointed numerous southern Democrats to federal office, including former Confederate general David M. Key, who became his postmaster general. Despite Hayes's hope, few new southern white voters joined the Republican party, and it shrank into a powerless minority in most of the region for the remainder of the nineteenth century. Kenneth L. Davison, The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes (Westport, Conn., 1972); Keith Dan Polakoff, The Politics of Inertia: The Election of 1876 and the End of Reconstruction (Baton Rouge, La., 1973), 246-51, 317-21; Vincent P. DeSantis, Republicans Face the Southern Question: The New Departure Years, 1877-1897 (1959; New York, 1969), 66-132; William Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869-1879 (Baton Rouge, La., 1979), 335-52. . president of the U.S. A. I Deem it quite an honor upon you Mr. Douglass and also upon the african Descended Race in america. Mr. Hayes is carrying out his policy so far. Demonstrated in his letter of acceptance and inaugural address. I truthfully hope a peaceful solusion of pollitical dificulties will soon or late dawn upon this continent. Peace in america Should be the watchword of our Constitutional liberty and what is more supreme. Our natural Born and God given Rights. Our sacred constitution embodies all of our civil and pollitical rights. Though, they have been but meagerly extended. By those who entertained the principal governmental powers in america over us. after the Results of the late Civil Strife had ended upon the field of Blood and gave us peace. peace is the cry all over this accursed nation. a Blessing that we will never Be given until social and pollitical equality is imparcially extended to us. irrespective of color, race or previous condition of servitude.

What a Shame on the american people, that Caste or Color, is a Crime. let me say to this Class of people, and men of the North, South, East, and West, the that there is But one w highway to Reconciliation, and that is open, Straight, and free, and over its portals are inscribed these Morels, Equal Rights to all, to all the Equal protection of the Laws, and if they will walk in that highway, they will arrive at port of peace, and their final unbroken Rest,—: laggnage of the poet

there is a weapon Sinner yet,
and Stronger than the Bayonet,
a Weapon that comes down as Still
as Snow flakes fall upon the Sod,
But Executes a freemans Will,
as Lighting does the Will of god.

Mr. Douglass, I would like to see your Well written autobiography, Entitled "my Bondage and my freedom of which I have Some interesting accounts, in my antislavery history. Your Escape from tyranny, I went to See a Specimen Copy of your paper. that Janas Janr Sons publish. I want to Subscribe for it,

Respectfully,

J. H. BurkhalterBurkhalter, J. H.

.

P.S. Ere long I wish to hear from you in relation to those things above spoken off. please. address,

J. H. Burkhalter,

Elkville,

Ills,