Let me confess, Sir, that, while at each stage I have felt this tyranny most keenly, and never doubted that it ought to be arrested by impeachment, my feelings have been most stirred by the outrage to Hayti, which, besides being a wrong to the Black Republic, was an insult to the colored race, not only abroad, but here at home. How a Chief Magistrate with four millions of colored fellow-citizens could have done this thing passes comprehension. Did he suppose it would not be known? Did he imagine it could be hushed in official pigeonholes? Or was he insensible to the true character of his own conduct? The facts are indisputable. For more than two generations Hayti had been independent, entitled under International Law to equality among nations, and since Emancipation in our country commended to us as an example of self-government, being the first in the history of the African race and the promise of the future. And yet our President, in his effort to secure that Naboth’s Vineyard on which he had set his eyes, not content with maintaining the usurper Baez in power, occupying the harbors of Dominica with war-ships, sent other war-ships, being none other than our most powerful monitor, the Dictator, with the frigate Severn as consort, and with yet other monitors in their train, to strike at the independence of the Black Republic, and to menace it with war. Do I err in any way, am I not entirely right, when I say that here was unpardonable outrage to the African race? As one who for years has stood by the side of this much-oppressed people, sympathizing always in their woes and struggling for them, I felt the blow which the President dealt, and it became the more intolerable from the heartless attempts to defend it. Alas, that our President should be willing to wield the giant strength of the Great Republic in trampling upon the representative government of the African race! Alas, that he did not see the infinite debt of friendship, kindness, and protection due to that people, so that instead of monitors and war-ships, breathing violence, he had sent a messenger of peace and good-will!

This outrage was followed by an incident in which the same sentiments were revealed. Frederick Douglass, remarkable for his intelligence as for his eloquence, and always agreeable in personal relations, whose only offence is a skin not entirely Caucasian, was selected by the President to accompany the Commissioners to San Domingo,—and yet on his return, and almost within sight of the Executive Mansion, he was repelled from the common table of the mail-steamer on the Potomac, where his companions were already seated; and thus through him was the African race insulted and their equal rights denied. But the President, whose commission he had borne, neither did nor said anything to right this wrong, and a few days later, when entertaining the Commissioners at the Executive Mansion, actually forgot the colored orator whose services he had sought.[155] But this indignity is in unison with the rest. After insulting the Black Republic, it is easy to see how natural it was to treat with insensibility the representative of the African race.

ALL THESE THINGS IN ISSUE NOW.

Here I stay this painful catalogue in its various heads, beginning with nepotism and gift-taking with repayment by office, and ending in the contrivance against San Domingo with indignity to the African race,—not because it is complete, but because it is enough. With sorrow unspeakable have I made this exposure of pretensions, which, for the sake of republican institutions, every good citizen should wish expunged from history; but I had no alternative. The President himself insists upon putting them in issue; he will not allow them to be forgotten. As a candidate for reëlection he invites judgment, while partisans acting in his behalf make it absolutely necessary by the brutality of their assault on faithful Republicans unwilling to see their party, like the Presidential office, a personal perquisite. If his partisans are exacting, vindictive, and unjust, they act only in harmony with his nature, too truly represented in them. There is not a ring, whether military or senatorial, that does not derive its distinctive character from himself. Therefore, what they do and what they say must be considered as done and said by the chieftain they serve. And here is a new manifestation of that sovereign egotism which no taciturnity can cover up, and a new motive for inquiry into its pernicious influence.

THE GREAT PRESIDENTIAL QUARRELLER.

Any presentment of the President would be imperfect which did not show how this ungovernable personality breaks forth in quarrel, making him the great Presidential quarreller of our history. As in nepotism, gift-taking with repayment by office, and Presidential pretensions generally, here again he is foremost, having quarrelled not only more than any other President, but more than all others together, from George Washington to himself. His own Cabinet, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the diplomatic service, and the civil service generally, all have their victims, nearly every one of whom, besides serving the Republican Party, had helped to make him President. Nor have Army officers, his companions in the field, or even his generous patrons, been exempt. To him a quarrel is not only a constant necessity, but a perquisite of office. To nurse a quarrel, like tending a horse, is in his list of Presidential duties. How idle must he be, should the words of Shakespeare be fulfilled, “This day all quarrels die”![156] To him may be applied those other words of Shakespeare, “As quarrellous as the weasel.”[157]

Evidently our President has never read the Eleventh Commandment: “A President of the United States shall never quarrel.” At least he lives in perpetual violation of it, listening to stories from horse-cars, gobbling the gossip of his military ring, discoursing on imaginary griefs, and nursing an unjust anger. The elect of forty millions of people has no right to quarrel with anybody. His position is too exalted. He cannot do it without offence to the requirements of patriotism, without a shock to the decencies of life, without a jar to the harmony of the universe. If lesson were needed for his conduct, he might find it in that king of France who on ascending the throne made haste to declare that he did not remember injuries received as Dauphin.[158] Perhaps a better model still would be Tancred, the acknowledged type of the perfect Christian knight, who “disdained to speak ill of whoever it might be, even when ill had been spoken of himself.”[159] Our soldier President could not err in following this knightly example. If this were too much, then at least might we hope that he would consent to limit the sphere of his quarrelsome operations so that the public service might not be disturbed. Of this be assured,—in every quarrel he is the offender, according to the fact, as according to every reasonable presumption; especially is he responsible for its continuance. The President can always choose his relations with any citizen. But he chooses discord. With the arrogance of arms he resents any impediment in his path,—as when, in the spring of 1870, without allusion to himself, I felt it my duty to oppose his San Domingo contrivance. The verse of Juvenal, as translated by Dryden, describes his conduct:—

“Poor me he fights,—if that be fighting where

He only cudgels and I only bear.

…