Volume 20 — FREDERICK DOUGLASS AND PRESIDENT GRANT.

Letter to Hon. Andrew D. White, President of Cornell University, August 10, 1872.

Washington, August 10, 1872.

MY DEAR SIR,—I am surprised by a statement purporting to proceed from you, which I find under the telegraphic head, to the effect that I have misrepresented facts with regard to Frederick Douglass.

In making this allegation you defend the Commissioners to San Domingo, and allege that Mr. Douglass was well treated by them. I have never said the contrary, nor have I ever alluded to the treatment he received from them. Not a word or hint can be found on the subject in anything written or spoken by me.

My allusion was to the exclusion of Mr. Douglass from the common table of the mail-packet on the Potomac, almost within sight of the Executive Mansion, simply on account of color,—and I added, that the President, on whose invitation he had joined the Commission, never uttered a word in rebuke of this exclusion, and when entertaining the returned Commissioners at dinner carefully omitted Mr. Douglass, who was in Washington at the time, and thus repeated the indignity. On this you are represented as remarking, that General Sigel was also omitted, but that, in fact, Mr. Douglass and General Sigel had already left for their homes (forgetting that Mr. Douglass continued in Washington); and you do not allow yourself to doubt, that, had they been in town, they would have been included in the invitation. Your apology clearly shows your opinion that they ought to have been invited; but please not to forget that there was a reason for inviting Mr. Douglass that did not exist in the case of General Sigel. The General was white, and he had suffered no indignity on board a mail-packet which it was in the power of the President to rebuke by example.

But you are mistaken in the facts, as appears by the newspapers of the time. The Commissioners reached Washington on the evening of March 27th. They were entertained at dinner by the President March 30th. On the day before the dinner Mr. Douglass presided at the Convention to nominate a Delegate to Congress from the District of Columbia, and on taking the chair made a speech. Mr. Chipman was nominated against Mr. Douglass, who made another speech thanking his supporters for their votes. To gratify the friends of Mr. Douglass, there was an understanding that he should succeed Mr. Chipman as Secretary of the District. These things show that Mr. Douglass was not only in Washington, but conspicuously so, presiding at a public Convention, and being voted for as a candidate for Congress.

But we are not left to inference. Mr. A. M. Green, of Washington, who at the Convention nominated Mr. Douglass for Congress, assures us that he did not leave town till some days later. Mr. Green further states, in a note dated August 10th, now before me, that about this time he and another friend called on Mr. Douglass, in relation to his appointment by the President as Secretary of the District; that Mr. Douglass, while thanking them for their earnestness in his behalf, assured them that he had no hope of success; that he had “new evidence of the conservative character or tendency of the Administration, which warranted him in the opinion that we could not succeed”; and Mr. Green says that Mr. Douglass added these words: “I was not only neglected without any rebuke for the offence from the President, but the Commissioners have been invited to dine with the President, and the same spirit of neglect has been exhibited in that respect also.” Mr. Green adds, that recently, while on the way to the National Colored Convention at New Orleans, Mr. Douglass, in conversation with Mr. Downing and himself, “referred in a complaining spirit to this circumstance.”

I have also before me a note, dated August 10th, from Mr. Wormley, so well known for his excellent hotel in Washington, who says that he asked Mr. Douglass, shortly after his return, if he dined with the President and the Commissioners, to which he answered, “No, and for the good reason that I was not invited”; and then he added, “It is no use to deny it, but I feel it sorely.” This was at Mr. Douglass’s office. On another occasion, at his son’s house, referring to the same thing, he said to Mr. Wormley, “I felt it keenly.”

Mr. Gray, recently of the Legislative Council of the District, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, now a School Trustee, assures me that Mr. Douglass spoke to him of his omission by the President with the same feeling that he exhibited to Mr. Green and Mr. Wormley. These witnesses are all colored, but even without the new law nobody would question their testimony. I add my own acquaintance with the case. At my house, Mr. Douglass, while speaking not unkindly, said that he felt the President’s neglect in not inviting him to dine, which was more noticeable, as he had gone to San Domingo at the express invitation of the President, and on his return was insulted on board the Potomac mail-packet. He added, that an invitation from the President would have been a proper rebuke to those who had insulted him.

I will add, that it is a matter of common notoriety that Mr. Douglass did not disguise his feelings on account of this Presidential incident.

Such are the facts and the evidence. I think that you will see, my dear Sir, that, if there is any misstatement, or, as you express it, “perversion of facts,” it is not on my part.

Faithfully yours,

Charles Sumner.