Frederick Douglass

by Booker T. Washington

Important as was the Freedmen’s Bank, both as a success and as a failure, it was but a small part of the many evidences that the black race was everywhere awake to the fact that it was living in a new era. The transformation of the Negro’s status from that of a quasi-denizen to that of a full-fledged citizen of America was a revolution of far-reaching import, but it was accompanied by little demonstration. The only proof that a great change had been brought about was the eagerness with which the colored people attempted to realize all the benefits belonging to full citizenship. Up to this time, of course, they had never had any part in politics, but it did not take them long to learn the game. Educated Negroes and those who had but little education, very quickly mastered its tricks and made the most of their opportunities. In every Southern state colored men were easily elected to the state legislatures and to other high offices.

In Louisiana, Oscar J. Dunn, P. B. S. Pinchback, and C. C. Antoine; in South Carolina, Alonzo J. Ransier and Robert H. Gleaves; and in Mississippi, Alexander Davis, were elected Lieutenant-Governors. Colored men were also chosen for important county and town offices;—there were Negro sheriffs, county clerks, justices of the peace. To this period also belongs the election of the only two colored men ever given seats in the United States Senate, Hiram R. Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, of Mississippi. In the lower house of Congress, nearly every state in the South was represented by Negroes. In addition to these elective offices of honor and distinction, a large number of the leaders of the race held appointive Federal offices, as postmasters, and as collectors of customs and internal revenue, and for the first time in the history of the United States, colored men were appointed to diplomatic positions.

In recent years, students and writers of the Reconstruction period, have indulged in a good deal of unmerited abuse of the colored men who, for a brief season, and without previous training, under the leadership of white politicians, held political posts. It is a deplorable fact that too many inferior persons were elected to fill important state and county offices in the reconstructed states. It is quite true that the colored citizen voted for unfit men of his own race because there was no one else to vote for. This same freedman would more willingly have used his franchise for a white man of character and ability, if he had had the opportunity. The fact is that democracy does not stand still for want of fit men, whether in the Bowery district in New York or in the Black Belt of South Carolina. The Negroes who were elected to Congress, however, were, with but few exceptions, men of character and superior intelligence. B. K. Bruce of Mississippi, John R. Lynch, Robert Brown Elliot, A. J. Ransier, and Robert Smalls were highly creditable representatives of a race that had just emerged from the night of slavery. In fact, it is surprising that there were any colored men in the South who had enough spirit and intelligence even to aspire to the things that but yesterday were beyond their reach. It is also worthy of note that among the Negroes holding positions of dignity and trust, there were only a few cases in which that trust was knowingly betrayed.

The eagerness with which colored men, of any ability at all, sought public posts was largely due to the fact that there were few places open to honorable ambitions, outside of public office, to which they could aspire. Not many at that time had any training for school-teaching or the professions. Politics was the one door that opened most widely to Negroes of ability. The people at large seemed to enjoy the novelty of seeing these new citizens of the country so quickly take their places in the civil service of the government, and wear whatever honors they could win. The same sentiment that forced the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments into the Constitution of the United States, was gratified when educated and eloquent ex-slaves took their seats in both branches of Congress.

While it lasted, this was all very pleasing, hopeful, and interesting, but a reaction was bound to come. The constituency behind these representative leaders lacked the necessary intelligence, knowledge, and business experience. By such an electorate men may be chosen to power, but they cannot long be held in power.

It was an unfortunate thing, too, that the freedmen learned their first lessons in politics when public morals were at so low an ebb. Many sins were committed and tolerated in the interest of party success. Many desperate men in a spirit at once predatory and partisan, invaded the South and attempted to instruct the colored people in ways that were dark, but ways that led to party victory. These men were bad models for a learning race to follow. Although it was unreasonable to expect these newly emancipated people to be superior to their white leaders, yet, by recent writers, they have been held accountable for whatever sins were committed in this office-holding era.

Mr. Douglass, in the midst of the political prosperity of his race, was not misled as to the outcome. No one saw more clearly than he the uncertainty of the position to which it had been elevated by recent events. While it is true he was at no time a political power in the South, the colored men who came into office looked to him for counsel and advice. He rejoiced in the many evidences of personal worth and talent displayed by Negroes who, for the first time in American history, were having some real part in the government of the country. Yet experience made him feel and declare that, after all, “the true basis of rights is the capacity of the individual.” He urgently pleaded that the government should give the freedman education that he might have knowledge to use his suffrage in such a manner as to preserve his own liberty, and contribute to the public welfare.

Mr. Douglass enjoyed a full share of the honors and responsibilities of office-holding. In each succeeding administration after the war, posts and places came to him almost as a matter of course, because of his prominence as a representative of the enfranchised race. During the administration of President Grant, he was appointed one of the councilmen of the District of Columbia, and afterward was elected a member of the legislature of the District. He soon resigned the last position to accept the secretaryship of the commission appointed by Grant to visit San Domingo for the purpose of negotiating a treaty for the annexation of that island to the United States. The commission was composed of Senator B. F. Wade, Dr. S. G. Howe, and Andrew D. White, President of Cornell University. The country was somewhat startled by the innovation of placing a colored man in a position to represent the government on so important a mission. Its purpose failed. Opposition on the part of Senator Sumner and other influential Republicans was of the most bitter and uncompromising sort.

The political feud that arose from General Grant’s San Domingan policy carried many men out of the Republican party. Mr. Douglass was placed in an awkward position in accepting the appointment, because his great friend, Senator Sumner, was the leader of the opposition to the President’s plan of annexation. He admired and was personally attached to both because of their heroic services in the cause of freedom and citizenship for his people. Explaining his attitude, he said: “I am free to say that, had I been guided only by the promptings of my heart, I should, in this controversy, have followed Charles Sumner. He was not only the most clear-sighted, brave, and uncompromising friend of my race who had ever stood upon the floor of the Senate, but he was to me a loved, honored, and precious personal friend.”

After Senator Sumner had arraigned President Grant in a notable speech in the Senate, Mr. Douglass happened to be a caller at the White House and was asked by the President what he now thought of his friend from Massachusetts. True to his feelings, Douglass frankly replied that, in his opinion, the Senator was sincere in his position, believing that in opposing annexation he defended the cause of the colored race, as he had always done. “I saw that my reply was not satisfactory,” Douglass observes, “and I said, ‘What do you think, Mr. President, of Senator Sumner?’ He replied with some feeling, ‘I think he is mad.’”