Part IV (continued 2)

Chapter Eighteen

“If slavery could not kill us, liberty won’t”

Seneca Falls’ Union Woman’s Suffrage Society hated to lose one of its most faithful and ardent members, but the manner of her leaving was cause for much rejoicing. A Civil Service position in Washington! My goodness, what a break!

“It’s not a break.” Miss Dean, secretary of the society, spoke indignantly. “Helen Pitts has passed the examination, and she is taking her well-earned place in the ranks of government workers.”

“Sure,” Matilda Hooker teased, “but isn’t Susan B. Anthony wearing herself out all over the place just so women can have such rights? This is a significant step, and I say we women in Seneca can be proud of Helen Pitts.”

“Hear! Hear!” they said. Then Helen Pitts came in, her face flushed, and after a little excited chatter the meeting was called to order.

It was true that Helen had taken the fall Civil Service examination by way of a “declaration of independence.” When she presented herself at the post-office they had eyed her with disapproval.

“What’s the schoolmarm here for?” they asked. And Sid Green remarked sourly that he’d heard tell she was one of those “advanced women.” His wife rebuked him sharply.

“Miss Pitts is one of the nicest and most ladylike teachers we’ve ever had. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Sid Green!”

But Sid hadn’t taken it back. The School Board hadn’t liked their teacher’s marching in the suffrage parade last fall—and Sid knew it, no matter what his wife said. Anyhow, he wore the pants in his house. He hitched them up now with a jerk and went outside.

There was no question about the teacher’s popularity with her pupils. The morning she mailed her resignation (to take effect at the end of the month) she decided not to tell the children until after the Christmas party. That wasn’t going to be easy.

The teacher’s mind was jerked back to the present by hearing her name.

“I move that Helen Pitts be our delegate,” Lucy Payne said.

Helen blinked her eyes.

“I second the motion.” Mrs. Huggins was nodding her head emphatically.

Helen nudged the girl next to her and whispered, “I didn’t hear—What’s going on?”

“Delegates to the National Convention,” came the low answer.

“But—”

“Sh-sh! You’re on your way to fame and fortune.” The girl grinned as the chairman rapped for order. She was ready to put the motion.

“It has been moved and seconded that Miss Helen Pitts be our delegate in Washington next month. All those in favor say ‘Aye’.”

The “Ayes” had it, and everybody beamed at Helen.

“Get up! You’re supposed to thank them!” Her friend nudged her.

It was silly to be nervous—they were all her friends. But the hazel eyes were dangerously bright and the neat, folded kerchief at her throat fluttered.

“Ladies, you do me great honor,” she said. “I—I’ll try to be a good representative.” She swallowed and then spoke resolutely. “We know why we want votes for women—not for any of the silly reasons some men say. We must be very sure and as courageous as our leaders. They are taking the fight right to the Capital, and I promise you we’ll fling it into the very teeth of Congress, disturbing their peaceful complacency until they will be forced to action.”

They did not have enough funds in the treasury to send a delegate from Seneca Falls. Helen would go down to Washington a week before her job started.

Helen Pitts spent most of her Christmas holiday at home packing and harking to parental admonitions. Gideon Pitts regarded his daughter both with pride and apprehension. Schoolteaching had been a nice, quiet occupation, but he knew something about the “wiles” and “pitfalls” of big cities. He thought he ought to go down with her and see that she found a respectable place to live in. His wife held him back.

“That’s silly, Pa. Helen’s got plenty mother wit, for all she’s so small and frail-looking.” Her mother sighed. “I was hoping she’d be settling near home—that she might accept Brad.”

Aunt Julia was a little more direct.

“I’d get this nonsense out of Helen’s head if I was her mother.” She spoke firmly. “Old maids soon fade, and all these new-fangled ideas ain’t a-gonna keep her warm winter nights.”

“Helen’s no old maid yet,” defended her mother.

“’Pears like to me she’ll be thirty come this spring. And if that ain’t an old maid my mind’s failing me,” was the acid comment.

In due time Helen Pitts took her seat in the Fourth National Suffrage Convention, meeting in Washington the first week in January, 1874.

The air crackled with excitement. Now that the Fourteenth Amendment had gone to some length to define “citizenship” within the United States, “manhood suffrage” was being substituted by the politicians for the recent vanguard cry “universal suffrage.” Susan B. Anthony was calling upon the women of America to have their say. The leaders of the movement were ridiculed, mocked and libeled, but they had come to Washington in full armor.

Her face aglow, eyes sparkling with indignation, Miss Anthony told the opening session that a petition against woman’s suffrage had been presented in the Senate by a Mr. Edmunds. Mrs. General Sherman, Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren and other Washington wives had signed it.

“These are the women,” she said, “who never knew a want, whose children are well fed and warmly clad. Yet they would deny these same comforts to other women even though they are earned by the toil of their hands. Such women are traitors not only to their best instincts, but to all mothers of men!”

Helen tried to applaud louder than anybody else. She would have liked to stand and tell them that her home was in Rochester, that she had been one of the youngest members of Susan B. Anthony’s own club. But the women did not spend their time exchanging compliments. Helen voted for or against resolution after resolution; she was placed on one committee.

Lincoln Hall was packed for the big open session on Saturday afternoon. Many came just to hear the big speakers, but the women were happy because they were creating a real stir in Washington. They devoutly hoped it would be felt throughout the country.

A shiver of anticipation went through the crowd at the appearance of Robert Ingersoll.

“He’s like a Greek god,” a woman seated beside Helen moaned. “Any man as handsome as that is bound to be wicked!”

An outstanding editor had written at great length on how laws in the United States favored women. Word by word and line by line Ingersoll, the lawyer, cut the ground from underneath the editor’s feet. Skilfully he analyzed the many laws upon the statute books which bound women and their children to the petty whims and humors of men.

“But these laws will not change until you change them,” he told them. “Justice and freedom do not rain like manna from heaven upon outstretched hands. We men will not give you the ballot. You must take it!”

The secretaries rustled papers nervously. The chairman glanced at her watch. There was a hitch in the program, but the audience did not mind a little breathing spell. The side door up front opened, and Frederick Douglass entered as quietly as possible. He looked like a huge bear. He was covered with snow which clung even to his beard and hair. With some assistance he hurriedly removed this overcoat and rubbers. After wiping his face and hair with his big handkerchief, he mounted the steps to the platform.

Instantly the crowd burst into applause which continued while Susan B. Anthony took his hand and Mr. Ingersoll, leaning forward in his seat, greeted him warmly. When Douglass sat down facing the audience his broad shoulders sagged a little, and Helen fancied he closed his eyes for a moment as he rested his hands on his knees. She had not heard him since the close of the war. The touch of gray in his hair heightened his air of distinction, but she had not before noticed how his cheekbones showed above the beard. Perhaps his face was thinner.

To this convention Douglass was the very symbol of their strivings. He was one of the first to see that woman’s suffrage and Negro citizenship were the same fight. He had appeared with Susan B. Anthony in her early meetings at Syracuse and Rochester. Now slavery was abolished and here he was still standing at her side.

Few in the big hall heard the effort in Frederick Douglass’ voice that afternoon. They heard his words. But behind him Robert Ingersoll’s mouth tightened and a little frown came on his face. What can I do to help? he wondered.

Afterward, Helen Pitts tried to speak to Mr. Douglass. He would not remember her, but it would be something to write to the folks at home. But the press of the crowd was too great, and her committee was called for a short caucus.

In front of the hall some time later she was surprised to see him just leaving the building. With him was Mr. Ingersoll. Helen was struck again by the somber shadows in Douglass’ face, but Ingersoll was smiling, his face animated.

“Nonsense, Douglass!” she heard Ingersoll say. “What you’ve needed for a long time is a good lawyer.” He laughed buoyantly. “Well, here he is!”

Douglass’ voice was heavy.

“But, Mr. Ingersoll, I can’t—”

Ingersoll had stepped to the curb and, lifting his cane, was hailing a passing cab.

“But you can. Come along, Douglass! First, we eat. Then I shall tell you something about banking. What a spot for you to be in!”

They climbed into the cab, and it rolled away through the gathering dusk. Helen walked to her room, wondering what on earth they had been talking about.

The next time Helen Pitts heard Douglass speak was on the occasion of the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Lincoln Park. Negroes throughout the United States had raised the money for this monument to Lincoln; and on a spring day, when once more the lilacs were in bloom, they called together the great ones of the country to pause and think. Helen had never before witnessed such an array of dignitaries—the President of the United States, his Cabinet, judges of the Supreme Court, members of the Senate and House of Representatives.

“Few facts could better illustrate the vast and wonderful change which has taken place in our condition as a people,” Douglass, the ex-slave, told the hushed crowd, “than our assembling here today.... It is the first time that, in this form and manner, we have sought to do honor to an American great man, however deserving and illustrious. I commend the fact to notice. Let it be told in every part of the Republic. Let men of all parties and opinions hear it. Let those who despise us, not less than those who respect us, know it and that now and here, in the spirit of liberty, loyalty and gratitude, we unite in this act of reverent homage. Let it be known everywhere, and by everybody who takes an interest in human progress and in the amelioration of the condition of mankind, that ... we, the colored people, newly emancipated and rejoicing in our blood-bought freedom, near the close of the first century in the life of this Republic, have now and here unveiled, set apart, and dedicated a monument of enduring granite and bronze, in every line, feature, and figure of which men may read ... something of the exalted character and great works of Abraham Lincoln, the first martyr-President of the United States.”

Douglass spoke as one who loved and mourned a friend. And when the last word was said, men turned and walked away in silence.

“He is the noblest of them all!” Helen Pitts said to herself.

Douglass sat that night at home in his study, his head bowed in his hands. Lincoln had been struck down, his face turned toward the future; he had been struck down as he walked in the road. And they had not carried on. The nation had failed Lincoln and new chaos was upon them. “You are caught up in a rosy cloud, Douglass.”

He had been with the Senator from Massachusetts when he died. With his last breath Charles Sumner had pleaded for the Civil Rights Bill—his bill. He had died fighting for it.

Douglass had pinned his faith on the ballot. He shuddered. Armed men were now riding through the night, marking their course by whipping, shooting, maiming and mutilating men, women and children. They were entering houses by force, shooting the inmates as they fled, destroying lives and property. All because the blacks were trying to use their ballot.

The summer saw a hesitating, weak old man pleading with Congress for assistance. Congress refused, and so the soldier had no other recourse but to call out troops to enforce the Reconstruction laws. Three times the soldiers restored to power candidates who had been ousted from office by force and fraudulent elections. In retaliation, the planters in Louisiana killed Negroes and whites in cold blood. Pitched battles raged in the streets of New Orleans.

The lowest ebb of degradation was reached with the election of 1876. School histories touch that month lightly and move quickly on. The deal was made, and Rutherford B. Hayes became President of the United States.

The calm was ominous. From several sections of the dead-still South groups of grim-faced men journeyed to Washington and gathered at Frederick Douglass’ house.

“They say he will remove the soldiers. That means the end of everything for us. Only the Federal troops have held them back!”

“Is there nothing? Nothing you can cling to?” Douglass sought for one hope.

“There might have been had we cemented ties with Northern labor. They are just as intent on crushing the white worker.” The black man’s eyes on Douglass’ face accused him. He had been a delegate to the Louisiana convention. And that was where the Negro labor union died!

“How bitter knowledge is that comes too late!” Douglass acknowledged his mistake with these words. The man from South Carolina spoke.

“They’ll say we lost the ballot because we did not know how to use it.”

“It is a lie—we could not do the things we knew to do!”

“The measures you have passed? Reforms?” Douglass searched the drawn faces.

“They’ll all be swept away—”

“Like so much trash!”

“Go to the new President,” they urged. “You cannot be accused of seeking favors. Go and tell him the truth. Plead with him to leave us this protection a little longer.”

“A little longer, they ask a little more time, Mr. Hayes.” Douglass was in the White House, begging understanding for his people’s need. He leaned forward, trying to read the face of the man who held so much of their destiny in his hands.

President Hayes spoke calmly.

“You are excited, Douglass. You have fought a good fight—and your case is won. There is no cause for further alarm. Your people are free. Now we must work for the prosperity of all the South. How can the Negro be deprived of his political or civil rights? The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments are part of the Constitution. Douglass, do you lose faith in your government?”

Douglass rose slowly to his feet. There was logic and reason in the President’s words.

“I covet the best for my country—the true grandeur of justice for all,” he said. “Humbly I do pray that this United States will not lose so great a prize.”

He bowed and took his leave.

All restrictions were lifted from the South. Little by little, on one pretext or another, blacks and poor whites were disfranchised; and the North covered the ugliness with gossamer robes of nostalgic romance. The Black Codes were invoked; homeless men and women were picked up for vagrancy, chain gangs formed, and the long, long night set in.

Not all at once, of course. And that afternoon as Douglass walked away through the White House grounds, he could not be sure. The air was clean and sweet after a cleansing shower, and he decided to walk.

He swung along, hardly heeding his direction. Then he saw that he was on I Street, N.W., and, as he approached a certain building, his steps slowed. The Haitians had opened their Legation with such pomp and pride! At last the valiant little Republic had been recognized, and President Lincoln had invited them to send their ambassador. He had come, a quiet, cultured gentleman who spoke English and French with equal charm and grace. But almost immediately the Haitian Legation on I Street had closed, and Ernest Roumain moved to New York City. He had said very little, but everybody knew that Washington would not tolerate the Legation of Haiti.

Douglass sighed. He hesitated a moment. Then his face brightened. He would go and see Miss Amelia. Yes, it would do him good to talk to Miss Amelia a little while.

Over on Pennsylvania Avenue at Fifteenth Street government clerks and secretaries were leaving the Treasury Building. They glanced up at the clearing skies and set off in their several directions. Helen Pitts paused a moment at the top of the steps. She and Elsie Baker usually walked home together; but Elsie did not come, so Helen started walking rather slowly down the street.

It was nice to stroll along like this after the busy day. Her work had settled into a regular routine. Life in the civil service was by no means dull. There was always the possibility of being let in on some “important secret.” Anything could and often did happen in Washington.

And now there was not even the slightest chance of her getting homesick. Her first lodging place had been respectable enough, but she used to look forward to times when she could go home. Now she was thinking about having her mother come down and spend a week with her. She’d love it.

Her good luck had come on a particularly cold night when Elsie, whom she knew then only as the Senior Clerk, had spoken to her.

“You have an awfully long ways to go, don’t you, Miss Pitts?”

“Yes, it is far. But it’s only in weather like this that I really mind it.”

Mrs. Baker—she was a war widow—regarded her for a few minutes and then murmured, “I wonder!”

“You wonder what?” asked Helen pleasantly.

“I was just wondering if maybe Miss Amelia wouldn’t let you have Jessie Payne’s room.”

“And why should I have Jessie Payne’s room? I don’t know the lady.”

The Senior Clerk laughed.

“You probably won’t because she went home Christmas to be married. And her room is empty.”

“Is it a nice room?”

“Miss Amelia’s house is special.” Elsie smiled. “All of us have been there for ages. John and I both lived there when we—Naturally, afterward, when I came back I went straight to Miss Amelia. But she doesn’t take new people. She isn’t able to get about much any more. Mr. Haley’s really the boss, and she doesn’t have to do anything. So you see, it isn’t a lodging house at all. You’d love it.”

“It sounds wonderful!”

“Why not come home with me tonight for supper? We could sound Miss Amelia out.”

They sat around the big table in the dining room—eight of them when a chair was placed for Helen—with the nicest little blue-eyed lady smiling at them from behind a tall teapot. Helen knew that the call, stoop-shouldered Mr. Haley was city editor of one of the daily papers. He didn’t talk much, but he was a pleasant host.

“Where are you from, Miss Pitts?”

Her reply brought Miss Amelia’s full attention.

“Rochester!” Miss Amelia exclaimed. “We have a very distinguished friend who lives—or rather used to live—in Rochester. He’s in Washington now. You’ve heard of Frederick Douglass?” She leaned forward, her eyes bright.

“Oh, yes, ma’am.” Helen’s enthusiasm was quite genuine. “Everybody in Rochester knows Frederick Douglass.”

The little lady sat back, a smile on her face.

“I knew him when he was a boy.”

Jack Haley chuckled. He turned to Helen, and his tired eyes smiled.

“Hold on to your hat, Miss Pitts. You’re going to hear a story.”

Everybody laughed. They all knew Miss Amelia’s favorite story.

“You’ll get the room!” whispered Elsie.

She was right, of course. The next day Helen Pitts moved into Jessie Payne’s room.

They met just outside the gate. He saw that the lady was about to turn in and so, lifting his hat, he stepped back. She smiled and said, “How do you do, Mr. Douglass?”

“Good evening, ma’am.” She walked up the path, and he cursed his inability to remember names. He was sure her face was familiar. It was dusk. When he saw her inside surely he would remember. At the door she turned.

“Stop cudgeling your brains,” she said. “I’ve never been introduced to you.”

“Then it’s not really my fault if I don’t know your name.” He gave a sigh of relief.

They both laughed then, and Miss Amelia was calling, “Come in! Come in, both of you! Well, so at last you two have met again.”

“Why no, Miss Amelia, the lady doesn’t—”

“We haven’t been introduced,” Helen interrupted.

“Tck! Tck! You told me that—”

“But that was years ago, Miss Amelia.”

Douglass was holding both Miss Amelia’s hands in his.

“Please, ladies! This isn’t fair. Now, please, won’t you present me?”

Amelia was severe.

“After the length of time you’ve stayed away, Fred, I shouldn’t.”

Douglass bowed gravely when at last she complied with his request, his eyes still somewhat puzzled. Then Helen said, “I’m Gideon Pitts’s daughter, from Rochester.”

A few weeks later—to the horror of Washington—President Hayes appointed Frederick Douglass United States Marshal of the District of Columbia. It might almost seem that, having recalled the troops from the South, the President went out of his way to administer a rebuke where it would hurt most.

Fear was expressed that Douglass would pack the courts and jury-boxes with Negroes. Of even more concern was the time-honored custom that the Marshal presented all guests to the President at state functions! Immediately efforts were made by members of the bar to defeat Douglass’ confirmation for office. But a one-time slaveholder, Columbus Alexander, of an old and wealthy Washington family, joined with George Hill, influential Republican, in presenting the necessary bond; and when the confirmation came up before the Senate the gentleman from New York, Senator Roscoe Conkling, won them over with a masterly and eloquent address on “Manhood.”

So Frederick Douglass in “white kid gloves, sparrow-tailed coat, patent-leather boots and alabaster cravat” was at the President’s side at the next White House reception. Nothing could be done now but wait for some overt act on his part to justify his removal. The opposition thought they had him a couple of months after he took office.

The Marshal had been invited to Baltimore to deliver a lecture in Douglass Hall—named in his honor and used for community educational purposes. He spoke on “Our National Capital.” Everybody seemed to enjoy a pleasant evening. But the next morning Douglass awoke to find that he was being quoted and attacked by the press. Within a few days some of the newspapers had worked themselves into a frenzy, and committees were appointed to procure names to a petition demanding his removal from office.

It is said that the President laughed about the matter, and it is certain that after a statement made by Douglass was printed in the Washington Evening Star the hostility kindled against him vanished as quickly as it had come.

Douglass could be very witty, and he had made some humorous reflections on the great city. “But,” he wrote the editor, “it is the easiest thing in the world, as you know, sir, to pervert the meaning and give a one-sided impression of a whole speech.... I am not such a fool as to decry a city in which I have invested my money and made my permanent residence.”

As a matter of fact, Douglass had spoken in the most glowing terms of “our national center.... Elsewhere we may belong to individual States, but here we belong to the whole United States....”

Douglass did love Washington. With his children and their families he occupied the double house at 316 and 318 A Street, N.E. But he wanted to buy some place on the outskirts of the city where Anna could have peace and rest. His house was only a few minutes’ walk from the Capitol, and visitors were always knocking on their door. Besides, Anna missed her trees and flowers. She shrank from what she termed the “frivolities” of Washington and would seldom go anywhere with him. When he spoke of moving “out into the country” he saw her face brighten. He began looking for a place.

Marshal Douglass was on hand to welcome President James A. Garfield to the White House. According to long-established usage, the United States Marshal had the honor of escorting both the outgoing and the incoming presidents from the imposing ceremonies in the Senate Chamber to the east front of the Capitol where, on a platform erected for the purpose, the presidential oath was administered to the President-elect.

Hopes throughout the country ran high at the time of Garfield’s inauguration. As Senator from Ohio, Garfield had been a reform advocate for several years.

There was no question about the serious state of affairs. “Under the guise of meekly accepting the results and decisions of war,” Douglass noted, “Southern states were coming back to Congress with the pride of conquerors rather than with any trace of repentant humility. It was not the South, but loyal Union men, who had been at fault.... The object which through violence and bloodshed they had accomplished in the several states, they were already aiming to accomplish in the United States by address and political strategy.”

In Douglass’ mind was lodged a vivid and unpleasant memory which he thought of as “Senator Garfield’s retreat.”

In a speech on the floor the Ohio Senator had used the phrase “perjured traitors,” describing men who had been trained by the government, were sworn to support and defend its Constitution, and then had taken to the battlefield and fought to destroy it. One Randolph Tucker rose to resent the phrase. “The only defense Mr. Garfield made to this brazen insolence,” Douglass remembered, “was that he did not make the dictionary. This was perhaps the soft answer that turneth away wrath, but it is not the answer Charles Sumner, Benjamin Wade or Owen Lovejoy would have given. None of these men would have in such a case sheltered himself behind a dictionary.”

Yet no one in the country felt the shock of President Garfield’s assassination more deeply than Douglass. Not only had a good man been cruelly slain in the morning of his highest usefulness, but his sudden death came as a killing blow to Douglass’ newly awakened hopes for further recognition of his people.

Only a few weeks before, Garfield had asked Douglass to the White House for a talk.[30] The President said he had wondered why his Republican predecessors had never sent a colored man as minister or ambassador to a white nation: He planned to depart from this usage. Did Douglass think one of his race would be acceptable in the capitals of Europe?

Douglass told President Garfield to take the step. Other nations did not share the American prejudice. Best of all, it would give the colored citizen new spirit. It would be a sign that the government was in earnest when it clothed him with American citizenship.

Again the country was in gloom. People in their sorrow came together; legislators and earnest men and women shook their heads and marveled at the struggles which seemed necessary for welding a nation of free men. The people as a whole were finding that freedom is a hard-bought thing.

Douglass rose before a huge audience in New York City. He was older. He had suffered because of failure to see, he had stumbled a little on the way—but he had never left the road. The lines in his face were lines of strength, the fire in his eyes was the light of knowledge, the sweet song of emancipation no longer filled his ears to the exclusion of everything else. He saw the scarred and blackened stumps that blocked his path, he saw the rocks and muddy pitfalls on the way, he knew that there were hidden snipers further up the road, but he went on—walking with dignity. The crowd listening to him was very still.

“How stands the case with the recently emancipated millions of colored people in our country?” he began. “By law, by the Constitution of the United States, slavery has no existence in our country. The legal form has been abolished. By law and the Constitution the Negro is a man and a citizen, and has all the rights and liberties guaranteed to any other variety of the human family residing in the United States.”

Men who had recently come to these shores from other lands heard him. New York—melting pot of the world! They had come from Italy and Germany, from Poland and Ireland and Russia to the country of freedom.

“It is a great thing to have the supreme law of the land on the side of right and liberty,” he said. “Only,” he went on, “they gave the freedmen the machinery of liberty, but denied them the steam with which to put it in motion. They gave them the uniforms of soldiers but no arms; they called them citizens and left them subjects; they called them free and almost left them slaves. They did not deprive the old master-class of the power of life and death. Today the masters cannot sell them, but they retain the power to starve them to death!

“Greatness,” the black orator reminded the citizens of New York, “does not come to any people on flowery beds of ease. We must fight to win the prize. No people to whom liberty is given can hold it as firmly or wear it as grandly as those who wrench their liberty from the iron hand of the tyrant.”

He could take the cheers of the crowd with a quiet smile. He knew that some of them would remember and in their own way would act.

Anna joined her husband on the New York trip. And for a short while they relived the time more than forty years before, when, after the anxious days and nights, they were first free together. This trip, their youngest son Charles was marrying Laura Haley, whose home was in New York.

They had banks of flowers, organ music, smart ushers and lovely bridesmaids. The marriage of Charles, son of Frederick Douglass, was a very different affair from that wedding so long ago when Frederick, fugitive from slavery, took Anna Murray, freewoman, to be his wife. As the bride all in white came floating down the aisle, Douglass turned and smiled into Anna’s clear, good eyes.

With his appointment as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, Douglass knew that he could safely buy the house he coveted. It was for sale, but until now he had only gazed with longing. It was on Anacostia Heights overlooking Washington across the Potomac—a fine old house with spacious grounds, servants’ quarters and stables. As soon as he took office, and without saying anything to Anna, he set about buying the property.

For many reasons Douglass’ present appointment was far more desirable than the post of Marshal. The Recorder’s job was a local office; though held at the pleasure of the President, it was in no sense a federal or political post.

Douglass felt freer and more on his own. At that time the salary was not fixed. The office was supported solely by fees paid for work done by its employees. Since every transfer of property, every deed of trust and every mortgage had to be recorded, the income was at times larger than that of any office of the national government except that of the President. Also, Douglass had that winter brought out the third of his autobiographies, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.

June promised to be a hot month, and everybody was talking about getting away from the city. Anna thought her husband seemed increasingly busy and preoccupied.

“Come along, dear,” he said one Sunday. “We’re going for a drive.”

“Me too, Grandma!” Their grandchild, Rosetta’s little girl, came running up.

“Not this time, honey,” Douglass said. “Grandpa’ll take you riding, but not right now.” And he added for Anna’s ears alone, “Today I only want your grandmother.”

He was in a talkative mood that afternoon.

“Remember the morning the boat pulled into New Bedford?” he asked as they crossed the bridge over the Potomac River. “Remember the big house sitting up on the hill?”

He turned in the buggy seat and looked at her. And in that moment he was no longer the great Frederick Douglass—he was the slender, eager boy, just escaped from slavery, leaning on the rail of the boat, devouring with his young eyes every detail of their wonderful free home. The big white house far up on the hill had caught their eyes. “Look! Some day we’ll have a house like that! Look, Anna!”

So now, when he asked, “Do you remember?” she only nodded her head. The smart little buggy was rolling along on land once more.

“Now we’re in Anacostia,” he said. “Close your eyes and keep them closed till I say!” She heard him chuckle like a boy, and then he said, “Now—Look!” He pointed with his whip.

It was the big white house high on a hill!

“There’s our house, Anna, the house I promised you!”

She could only stare. Then the meaning of his words made her gasp.

“Frederick! You don’t really mean—You haven’t—?”

He laughed as she had not heard him laugh in a long time. They were winding up the hill now—toward the house.

That afternoon they planned and dreamed. The owners had let the house run down, but it would be perfect.

“We’ll try to have it ready in time to escape the August heat. This is why I’ve been deaf to your talk about a vacation.”

The afternoon almost exhausted Anna.

“Mamma’s all fagged out,” Rosetta told her father the next day.

June was very hot, and Douglass began to worry about his wife.

“Perhaps you’d better go away for a few days.” She shook her head.

“The house will be ready soon. When we get on our hill—” Her eyes were happy with anticipation.

When the doctor ordered her to bed, she was planning the moving.

“I’ll just take it easy for a few days—then we’ll start packing,” she said.

Anna Murray Douglass died on August 4th, 1882.

Chapter Nineteen

Indian summer and a fair harvest

They moved him out to the house in November.

“It must be settled before winter,” Rosetta said, and his sons agreed.

“Pipes will freeze up unless someone is in the house.”

So they packed the furniture—the piano—his books. It was a twelve-room house. They looked at each other in dismay. What were his plans? What to put in all those rooms?

“Buy what is needed.” His voice was tired. He went into his room, closing the door softly behind him.

Meanwhile, Robert Ingersoll had moved to Washington. In spite of the many demands of his meteoric career he sought out Douglass, invited him to his home, sent him books.

“She was so happy, Douglass.” Ingersoll laid his hand on the older man’s arm. “Think of that. I wish—” He stopped and for a moment a shadow crossed his face. He was thinking of his brother. Then he said softly, “Blessed is the man who knows that through his own living he has brought some happiness into life.”

Gradually Douglass’ work reclaimed him. Nothing had been neglected at the office. Helen Pitts was now a Senior Clerk there. Everyone had cooperated in seeing that the work went on. His unfailing courtesy had endeared him to the whole staff.

He stopped in several times during winter for tea with Miss Amelia. The little old lady, grown very frail, kept a special biscuit “put by” for him. Jack Haley came in once and joined them. He kept Douglass talking quite late, for even after all these years Jack recalled the first long nights of his own loneliness.

Then the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, and Frederick Douglass leaped into the fray.

He called a protest mass meeting at Lincoln Hall.

“If it is a bill for social equality,” Douglass said, opening the meeting, “so is the Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men have equal rights; so is the Sermon on the Mount; so is the golden rule that commands us to do to others as we would that others should do to us; so is the teaching of the Apostle that of one blood God has made all nations to dwell on the face of the earth; so is the Constitution of the United States, and so are the laws and the customs of every civilized country in the world; for nowhere, outside of the United States, is any man denied civil rights on account of his color.”

He stood silent until the applause had died away, and introduced “the defender of the rights of men.” The speech Robert Ingersoll made comes down to us as one of the great legal defenses of all time.

The voice was the voice of Robert Ingersoll, but as Douglass listened he heard the clear call of Daniel O’Connell, the fervent passion of Theodore Parker, the dauntless courage of William Lloyd Garrison. Sparks “flashing from each to each!”

So Frederick Douglass spoke the following winter when Wendell Phillips died. All Boston tried to crowd into Faneuil Hall for the memorial to this great “friend of man.” Douglass was chosen to deliver the address.

“He is not dead as long as one man lives who loves his fellow-men, who strives for justice, and whose heart beats to the tread of marching feet.”

In the spring the women, gathered in their Sixteenth National Suffrage Convention, paid tribute to Wendell Phillips, and Douglass heard Miss Helen Pitts speak briefly. When he rose he made his “co-worker and former townswoman” a pretty compliment. The women on the platform smiled their approval at Helen.

In the summer Douglass went out on a speaking tour. The 1884 election was approaching, and throughout the country voices were questioning the party in power. Bloody crimes and outrages in the South, betrayal of all the principles and ideals of Abraham Lincoln, had not won over the Southern white vote. Negroes in the North—in some doubtful states their votes were important—began to leave “Lincoln’s Party.”

Douglass was steadfastly opposed to this trend. No possible good, he said, could come out of the Negro’s lining up with the “Party of the South.” It had been faithful to the slaveholding class during slavery, all through the war, and was today faithful to the same ideals.

“I hope and believe,” he told friends, “that Abraham Lincoln’s party will prove itself equally faithful to its friends ... friends with black faces who during the war were eyes to your blind, shelter to your shelterless, when flying from the lines of the enemy.... Leave these men no longer compelled to wade to the ballot-box through blood.... A government that can give liberty in its constitution ought to have the power in its administration to protect and defend that liberty.”

By midsummer it was clear that the campaign would be a hard one. James G. Blaine, the Republican candidate, was a popular figure. Grover Cleveland, Democratic candidate, was hardly known outside his own state. But the issues were not fought around two personalities.

When Douglass returned to Washington in August he heard about Miss Amelia.

“She wasn’t sick at all,” Helen told him.

“Why didn’t you let me know? I would have come.” Douglass was deeply distressed.

“There was no time. She wouldn’t have wanted us to call you from your work when there was nothing you could do.” She spoke gently as to an unhappy child, but her eyes were filled with tears.

And Douglass, beholding the understanding and compassion that lay in her blue eyes, could not look away. A minute or an hour—time did not matter, for the meaning of many years was compressed in that instant. No word was said, their hands did not touch, but in that moment the course of their lives changed.

Helen spoke first, a little breathlessly.

“Mr. Haley is breaking up the house. I’d—I’d like to take my vacation, now that you’re back. I’ll—I’ll go home for a little while.”

He had turned away, his hand shifting the papers on his desk. He did not look at her.

“Miss Pitts, may I—May I call to see you this evening?” he asked.

“Yes, Mr. Douglass,” Helen Pitts answered simply. “I’ll be at home.”

The next morning Douglass called on a minister who was also his close friend. He told him that he was going to be married.

“I’d like for you to perform the ceremony.”

The minister was all smiling congratulation. The announcement took him wholly by surprise. He had heard no whisper of romance involving the great Frederick Douglass who, for all his sixty odd years, was a handsome figure of a man. The minister beamed.

“You’re very wise. A man needs a good wife! And who is the fortunate lady?”

He repeated the name, trying to place it. Douglass’ next words brought him to his feet.

“Douglass!” Real alarm sounded in his voice. “You can’t! It’s suicide!”

Douglass smiled quietly. A warm peace filled his heart. He knew that all the years of his living had not been barren. All the time he had been growing into understanding.

“I should be false to all the purposes and principles of my life,” he said, “if I did not marry this noble lady who has done me the honor to consent to be my wife. I am a free man.” He stood up, balancing his cane in his hands. He regarded his distraught friend with something like pity. “I am free even of making appearances just to impress. Would it not be ridiculous if, after having denounced from the housetops all those who discriminate because of the accident of skin color, I myself should practice the same folly?”

They said nothing about their plans to anyone, not even to Douglass’ children, but were married three days later in the minister’s home. Then Douglass drove his bride across the Potomac River and out to Anacostia. Within the next few days every paper in the country carried accounts of this marriage. Most of what they said was untrue. They were almost unanimous in condemnation.

When Grover Cleveland was elected President, white and black alike sat back complacently, jubilantly waiting for the Democratic President to “kick out” the Recorder of Deeds. Douglass himself did not expect anything else. His adherence to the Republican party was well known. He was a “staunch Republican” who had made no secret of his abhorrence of a Democratic administration. With his wife he paid his formal respects at the inauguration reception, but they did not linger in the parlors. He was surprised when, upon returning home a few evenings later, he was handed a large engraved card inviting Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Douglass to the Executive Mansion.

“He was a robust, manly man,” Douglass said of Cleveland, “one who had the courage to act upon his convictions.... He never failed, while I held office under him, to invite myself and wife to his grand receptions, and we never failed to attend them. Surrounded by distinguished men and women from all parts of the country and by diplomatic representatives from all parts of the world, and under the gaze of late slaveholders, there was nothing in the bearing of Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland toward Mrs. Douglass and myself less cordial and courteous than that extended to the other ladies and gentlemen present.”[31]

Within the course of the next two years Washington and the country recovered some equanimity so far as Douglass was concerned. But it is doubtful if anybody forgot.

Now Douglass decided on the fulfillment of a long-cherished desire. They sailed for Europe.

“Don’t come back until you’ve really seen the world,” Ingersoll urged them. “Take plenty of time. You’ll be richly repaid.”

They stayed away nearly two years. Douglass revisited England and Ireland and Scotland. He missed the people with whom he had worked in the old days, but their children received him royally. The two sisters, Anna and Ellen Richardson, who forty-five years before had written to Thomas Auld offering to buy his “runaway slave,” were still living. Helen kissed their withered cheeks and breathed her thanks. They set up housekeeping in Paris, watched the ships sail from Marseilles, and climbed the old amphitheater in Arles. In Genoa Douglass was drawn, more than to anything else, to Paganini’s violin exhibited in the museum. This was Douglass’ favorite instrument. He had even learned to play it a little.

“We’ll buy a violin while we’re here,” Helen promised. “It won’t be Paganini’s, but we’ll get an instrument.”

“Well, it won’t sound like Paganini’s, either!” Under the Italian sunshine that was enough to make them laugh. Pisa and then Rome, Naples and Pompeii, Sicily.

Then eagerly they turned toward the rising sun—Egypt, the Suez Canal, Libyan deserts, the Nile flowing through Africa.

Douglass’ heart beat fast. Sandy’s face came before him—Sandy and the bit of African dust he had held in his hand so long ago. Perhaps strength had flowed into him from that dust.

They made the voyage from Naples to Port Said in four days. The weather was perfect, and at dawn they found themselves face to face with old Stromboli, whose cone-shaped summit rises almost perpendicularly from the sea.

“Nothing in my American experience,” Douglass claimed, “ever gave me such a deep sense of unearthly silence, such a sense of fast, profound, unbroken sameness and solitude, as did this passage through the Suez Canal, moving smoothly and noiselessly between two spade-built banks of yellow sand, watched over by the jealous care of England and France. We find here, too, the motive and mainspring of English Egyptian occupation and of English policy. On either side stretches a sandy desert, to which the eye, even with the aid of the strongest field-glass, can find no limit but the horizon; land where neither tree, shrub nor vegetation of any kind, nor human habitation breaks the view. All is flat, broad, silent and unending solitude. There appears occasionally, away in the distance, a white line of life which only makes the silence and solitude more pronounced. It is a line of flamingoes, the only bird to be seen in the desert, making us wonder what they find upon which to subsist.

“But here, too, is another sign of life, wholly unlooked for, and for which it is hard to account. It is the half-naked, hungry form of a human being, a young Arab, who seems to have started up out of the yellow sand under his feet, for no town, village, house or shelter is seen from which he could have emerged. But here he is, running by the ship’s side up and down the sandy banks for miles and for hours with the speed of a horse and the endurance of a hound, plaintively shouting as he runs: ‘Backsheesh! Backsheesh! Backsheesh!’ and only stopping in the race to pick up the pieces of bread and meat thrown to him from the ship. Far away in the distance, through the quivering air and sunlight, a mirage appears. Now it is a splendid forest and now a refreshing lake. The illusion is perfect.”[32]

The memory of this half-naked, lean young Arab with the mirage behind him made an indelible impression.

After a week in Cairo, Douglass wrote, “Rome has its unwashed monks, Cairo its howling and dancing dervishes. Both seem equally deaf to the dictates of reason.”

When they returned to Washington and to their home on Anacostia Heights they knew that they had savored the full meaning of abundant living. They had walked together in many lands and among many nationalities and races; they had been received together by peoples of all shades, who greeted them in many different languages; their hands had touched many hands. They had so much they could afford to be tolerant.

Arrows of ignorance, jealousy or petty prejudice could not reach them.

In June, 1889, Frederick Douglass was appointed Minister to Haiti.

Chapter Twenty

The Môle St. Nicolas

Secretary of State Blaine was disturbed. All morning bells had been ringing and secretaries scurrying around like mad. With the arrival of the New York shipowner, even the clerks in the outer offices knew that something was “in the wind.”

The “problem of the West Indies” was perhaps the most important unfinished business left over from the former Secretary of State. Blaine had seen himself succeeding where William Seward had failed. Circumstances were propitious and favorably disposed; the Môle St. Nicolas, most coveted prize in the Caribbean, was practically within his grasp—or had been.

Haiti, after seventy-five years of maintaining itself as firm and invulnerable as its own Citadel, was now torn and weakened by civil war. Six years before, a provisional government had been set up under a General Légitime. Gradually Légitime assumed control, and two years later France recognized his government as official. But for reasons of their own, business interests in the United States preferred dealing with General Hyppolite’s opposing forces, who termed the present régime that of “the usurpers of Port-au-Prince.” President Cleveland had listened to their advice and not recognized any government in Haiti. That left everything wide open. The U.S.-West Indies Line and the Charleston & Florida Steamship Line tackled shutting out the rival British Atlas Steamship Company, and the dire need for coaling stations was stressed in certain circles. At long last the United States had high hopes of locking up the narrow Windward Passage, one of the strategic routes on the world’s highway system of commerce.

Meanwhile Stephen Preston, Haitian Minister, was in the United States pleading for his country’s recognition. Blaine played a cat-and-mouse game, putting the anxious Preston off from week to week, yet according him every ceremonial privilege as a minister and assuring him that the matter of official recognition only awaited its turn before the new President—Benjamin Harrison.

So matters stood in the latter part of May, 1889. Then Secretary Blaine made two moves. He told Preston his terms for recognition: a naval station in Haiti and representation of Haiti in European capitals by the American ambassador to those countries! The Haitian’s olive face paled. He murmured a few words, bowed and departed. The Secretary then sent to President Harrison the names of an “investigating commission” to go to Haiti. It was to be headed by Colonel Beverley Tucker of Virginia.

Out of a clear sky, with no word of warning, Blaine’s papers still lying unsigned on his desk, President Harrison recognized the Légitime government in Haiti. At the same time he appointed the most widely known Negro in America “Minister Resident and Consul-General to the Republic of Haiti and chargé d’affaires to Santo Domingo.”

“A pretty kettle of fish!” stormed the shipowner.

Secretary Blaine struggled to maintain his dignity.

“A little premature, perhaps,” he temporized. “But our President has gone on record as favoring the development of commerce with Latin America, and we have no reason to believe that Frederick Douglass will not co-operate in carrying forward the clearly expressed policies of his government.”

“You are a fool!” snapped the shipowner.

The Secretary’s face flushed, and a vein throbbed at his temple.

“You forget,” he said evenly after a moment, “or perhaps you do not know, that Frederick Douglass was Secretary of President Grant’s Santo Domingo Commission; and Douglass had no part in its failure.”

“Whatever the reasons, what interests me is that the United States didn’t get Samoná Bay.” The shipowner’s voice rasped. “I never trust those—those people. It’s bad enough to have to do business with them in the islands. Well”—he made a gesture of resignation—“I didn’t come here to quarrel. You’ll simply have to handle this fellow.”

The Secretary picked up a sheet of paper from his desk. He was wondering how well he or anybody else could “handle” Frederick Douglass.

“I’ve already dictated a letter to him in which I express the hope that he will accept President Harrison’s appointment—”

The shipowner interrupted with something like a sneer.

“You’re certainly going out of your way to be cordial.”

“Ignorant calf!” was the Secretary’s unspoken thought. Aloud he continued as if he had not heard. “—because his influence as minister,” he said steadily, “is the most potent force we can send to the Caribbean for the peace, welfare and prosperity of those weary and unhappy people.”

“Um—um.” The idea was penetrating. “Not bad, not bad at all.”

“It can be late fall before he arrives.” They regarded each other across the flat-topped desk. “Meanwhile—”

“Meanwhile,” the shipowner was getting to his feet, “much can happen.”

“I was thinking that.”

“Perhaps the usurper, Légitime, will not be on hand to greet our new Ambassador.”

“Perhaps!”

The gentlemen bowed and separated.

That evening Stephen Preston sent a joyful letter home. “A miracle has taken place, truly a miracle!”

And on Cedar Hill the Douglasses sat on their porch and re-read the letter which a messenger had brought from Secretary of State Blaine.

“You deserve it, my dear. You deserve every bit of it!” She smiled at her husband, her eyes shining with happiness. Douglass’ voice was a little husky. The letter trembled in his hand.

“Secretary Blaine is right. This is important to every freedman in the United States. It’s important to that valiant small nation which owes its independence to a successful slave revolt. This recognition is important to dark peoples everywhere. I am so grateful that I’m here to do my part.”

And Helen Douglass reached out and took his hand. She was proud, so very proud of him.

Telegrams and letters of congratulation came in, not only from all over the United States, but from Mexico, South America, Africa. A clockmaker in Zurich sent Douglass a great clock carved from a huge block of wood.

Newspapers in the United States only mentioned an unexpected “turn-over” in Haiti “because it might affect the recent appointment.” But when on October 7, 1889, Légitime was thrown out of office and Hyppolite became president, the Administration declared it a purely domestic matter, and the United States representative was instructed to proceed to his post. Unexplained “troubles” had delayed Douglass’ departure, but now the reasons for keeping him in Washington rapidly exhausted themselves. The first week in November, Douglass, accompanied by his wife, sailed for Port-au-Prince.

Nature is lavish with her gifts in the Caribbean. They thought they had seen her finest habiliments along the Riviera, but even world travelers hold their breath or speak in awed whispers as out of the violet distance emerges the loveliest jewel of the Antilles.

Across a bay of deepest blue, the purple of the mountains of La Gonaïve loomed against the western sky as if tossed from the cerulean depths of the gulf. Fanning up from the great bay rise the hills, wrinkled masses of green and blue and gray and orange, their dim wave of color relieved by crimson splotches of luxuriant gardens or by the pointed spires of trees.

The city of Port-au-Prince spilled over into the water with its crowded harbor, large and small boats and white sails skimming over the surface. In the center of the city rose the great Gothic cathedral, to one side the white palace occupied by Haiti’s President.

Two smart, attentive officials were on the dock to meet Frederick Douglass. Behind sleek, glistening horses they drove the new Minister and his wife to the spacious villa which was to be their home. The house was already staffed with servants, who gathered, European fashion, to greet the new tenants. The maids smiled shyly at Mrs. Douglass, then whisked her away to her rooms. The officials took their leave, saying that the President would be happy to receive Mr. Douglass at his pleasure.

That afternoon, accompanied by his secretary, who would also act as interpreter, Douglass drove to the palace to present his credentials. He was cordially received by a uniformed adjutant. In a short while they were being ushered up a wide, sweeping staircase and into a frescoed hall. They paused here.

“There is the anchor of the Santa Maria,” the secretary whispered, “the anchor Columbus lowered in the Môle St. Nicolas.”

Douglass walked closer. He was so deeply absorbed that he did not see the huge doors swing open. The secretary had to touch his arm. The President of Haiti was coming to greet the representative from the United States, his hand extended. They went in to his study.

President Hyppolite was large and dark. He knew he was in a dangerous game. He knew that he was only a pawn. Wary and watchful, he listened more than he talked. For underneath everything else—far deeper than personal ambitions—was his determination to keep Haiti out of the scheming hands that clutched at her so greedily.

He hated all Spaniards, Frenchmen, Englishmen and Americans with equal intensity. He studied this brown American, this ex-slave, who carried himself with such dignity and who spoke with such assurance. Hyppolite wondered how much the other man knew. He attended his visitor’s words carefully, listening to catch any additional meanings in his voice. He understood English, but he remained silent, his large head slightly cocked to one side until the interpreter translated Douglass’ words into French.

He answered in French. Choosing his words carefully, he expressed his approval of “growing commercial intercommunications,” his hope for closer and “mutually helpful” relations with the United States. Then he touched upon Haiti’s long and independent existence and said that each nation has the right to be proud of its autonomy.

“For a long time Haiti was an outcast among the nations of the world. But Haiti remembers that the victory of Toussaint L’Ouverture was as important to the United States as it was to Britain. By exterminating the armies of Leclerc, we at the same time destroyed Napoleon’s dream of an empire in the Mississippi valley. He was glad to sell Louisiana at any price.”

The President was satisfied with the expression which lighted Douglass’ face when the interpreter had translated these words. His rather grim face broke into a smile.

“I speak a little English,” he said in English.

Douglass grinned and returned with:

“J’ai étudié le francais—un—une peu—mais ma femme—” he stopped, spreading his hands hopelessly.

They laughed together then, and the rest of the visit Hyppolite spoke English.

“Here you will learn the French—but quick,” he said. “Altogether we will help you.”

Douglass expressed his own and his wife’s appreciation of the preparations for their comfort, and President Hyppolite said that without doubt Mrs. Douglass would be very busy receiving the ladies of Port-au-Prince.

After Douglass had bowed out, the President stood for a few minutes drumming on his desk. Then he pulled a cord which summoned a certain gentleman of state.

“Your Excellency!” The man waited. President Hyppolite spoke rather slowly, in concise French.

“The Frederick Douglass is an honorable man. He intends to discharge his duties in a manner which will bring credit and distinction to his people and to his nation. It is to be remembered at all times that Mr. Douglass is, first of all, Ambassador of the United States.”

“Yes, Your Excellency!”

The President dismissed him with a nod. Then he walked to the window and stood looking at the Square. From this window he could not see the middle of the Champs de Mars, but he was thinking of the statue there—the statue of a black soldier thrusting his sword toward the sky. This statue of Dessalines is Haiti’s symbol of her struggle for freedom. Hyppolite sighed as he turned away from the window.

He wondered if there might be a better way.

Back in Washington activities had been bent upon getting John Durham sent as special consul to Port-au-Prince because of his “special fitness for the job.” Once more President Harrison’s action proved disappointing. He sent John Durham to Santo Domingo City. It began to be whispered about in Washington and New York that the Haitians had snubbed Frederick Douglass and his wife. Stephen Preston heard the rumors just before he sailed for home. He suspected their origin, but he decided to hold his peace until he reached Port-au-Prince.

“Frederick,” Helen Douglass said, “this place will be my undoing! Such ease is positively shameful. My only exercise is changing clothes for another reception or dinner party. And the food!” Her voice became a wail of despair. “I’m getting fat!”

He laughed.

“Well, madam, I might suggest horseback riding. I’m feeling fine!”

She shook her head.

“You? I can’t go galloping around these mountains the way you do.”

It was true. Frederick Douglass estimated his age to be over seventy. Yet he was spending hours every day in the saddle.

“It’s the only way one can see Haiti!”

They took the boat to Cap Haitien, and while Helen was entertained in one of the big white houses set on the slopes and surrounded by a tropical garden, Douglass, accompanied by other horsemen, rode up to the summit of Bonne-à-l’Evêque. Gradually the earth fell away until the rocky edges of the mountain showed like snarling teeth, and the foothills below seemed like jungle forest. An earthquake in 1842 was said to have shaken the Citadel to the danger point; but Douglass, viewing this mightiest fortress in the Western world, doubted whether any human army with all its modern equipment could take it. Christophe had built his Citadel at a height of twenty-six hundred feet—an amazing feat of engineering so harmoniously constructed through and through that, though thousands and thousands of natives must have died during the course of its construction, one could almost believe it the work of one man.

Douglass stood at the massive pile which is now the tomb of the most dominant black man in history.

“If a nation’s greatness can at all be measured by its great soldiers,” he thought, “then little Haiti, with its Toussaint L’Ouverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, must surely be listed among the first!”

Another day they took him up a high cliff overlooking the Môle St. Nicolas.

“You have perhaps heard that Abbé Raynal called it the Gibraltar of the West Indies,” the Haitian commented, watching Douglass’ face.

“See,” the second companion pointed with his riding crop, “the harbor is practically landlocked. The entrance is only four miles wide and deep enough on both sides to permit the largest vessels to pass close to shore. At two hundred yards from land bottom is not touched with an eighty-fathom line.”

Douglass gazed in wonder. The waters of the bay spread out, smooth and unruffled as a great lake. The land on which they stood at the right of the entrance rose sharply. Opposite, a wooded plain extended. At the end of the bay clustered a group of buildings with the clear sheen of water right in the middle of them.

“Man could not have designed anything so perfect,” Douglass murmured.

The first Haitian spoke again.

“They say all the fleets in Europe could lie here secure from every wind. And the largest vessels in fifty fathoms of water could have cables on land.”

“It is incredible!”

The Haitian turned as if to mount his horse. He spoke carelessly.

“A powerful nation holding this harbor might easily control not only the Caribbeans but South America as well.”

“But a friendly nation,” Douglass reasoned with great sincerity, “with the means at hand might use this harbor to bring prosperity to all the Caribbean.”

“Ce soit possible!”

Douglass did not know French well enough to catch the slight sarcasm in the Haitian’s words.

As they rode down the trail they spoke only of the scenery.

In November the United States warship Yantic steamed into the Môle, and Douglass reported that frequent references in the American press to alleged desires on the part of his country to obtain bases there were arousing fears among the Haitian people. Strangely enough, Douglass now found himself the point of attack by the press. They said he was not the man for the post.

“The fault of my character,” Douglass wrote later, “was that upon it there could be predicated no well-grounded hope that I would allow myself to be used, or allow my office to be used, to further selfish schemes of any sort for the benefit of individuals, either at the expense of Haiti or at the expense of the character of the United States.”[33]

Events moved rapidly. Certain facts became apparent to Douglass, and in March, 1890, he wrote to Secretary Blaine that certain American business interests were bringing pressure upon Haiti. Douglass had not at this time seen a report recorded by the Bureau of Navigation, received January 22, 1890, which read:

The strategical value of this Island from a naval point of view is invaluable, and this increases in direct proportion to the millions which American citizens are investing in the Nicaragua Canal. The United States cannot afford to allow any doubt to rest in the minds of any Haitian as to our fixed determination to allow no one to gain a foothold on, or establish a protectorate over this Island.

Home on leave for a few weeks in August, Douglass spoke on Haiti to a large audience in Baltimore. He noted he had recently been under attack by the press of the country.

“I believe the press has become reconciled to my presence in the office except those that have a candidate for it,” he said, “and they give out that I am going to resign. At them I fling the old adage ‘Few die, and none resign.’ I am going back to Haiti.”

Let us take Douglass’ own account of what happened the following winter. It appeared in the North American Review, September, 1891.

On January 26, 1891, Rear Admiral Gherardi, having arrived at Port-au-Prince, sent one of his under-officers on shore to the United States Legation, to invite me on board his flagship, the Philadelphia.... I went on board as requested, and there for the first time I learned that I was to have some connection with negotiations for a United States coaling-station at the Môle St. Nicolas; and this information was imparted to me by Rear Admiral Gherardi. He told me in his peculiarly emphatic manner that he had been duly appointed a United Sates special commissioner; that his mission was to obtain a naval station at the Môle St. Nicolas; and that it was the wish of Mr. Blaine and Mr. Tracy, and also of the President of the United States, that I should earnestly co-operate with him in accomplishing this object. He further made me acquainted with the dignity of his position, and I was not slow in recognizing it.

In reality, some time before the arrival of Admiral Gherardi on this diplomatic scene, I was made acquainted with the fact of his appointment. There was at Port-au-Prince an individual, acting as agent of a distinguished firm in New York, who appeared to be more fully initiated into the secrets of the State Department at Washington than I was, and who knew, or said he knew, all about the appointment of Admiral Gherardi, whose arrival he diligently heralded in advance, and carefully made public in all the political and business circles to which he had access. He stated that I was discredited at Washington, had, in fact, been suspended and recalled, and that Admiral Gherardi had been duly commissioned to take my place. It is unnecessary to say that it placed me in an unenviable position, both before the community of Port-au-Prince and before the government of Haiti.

Anyone may read a carefully documented account of the negotiations which followed in Rayford Logan’s Diplomatic Relations of the United States with Haiti. There can be no question that Douglass strove to carry out the wishes of his government while at the same time “maintaining the good character of the United States.” He clearly regretted certain features of the negotiations.

Not the least, perhaps, among the collateral causes of our non-success was the minatory attitude assumed by us while conducting the negotiation. What wisdom was there in confronting Haiti at such a moment with a squadron of large ships of war with a hundred cannon and two thousand men? This was done, and it was naturally construed into a hint to Haiti that if we could not, by appeals to reason and friendly feeling, obtain what we wanted, we could obtain it by a show of force. We appeared before the Haitians, and before the world, with the pen in one hand and the sword in the other. This was not a friendly and considerate attitude for a great government like ours to assume when asking a concession from a small and weak nation like Haiti. It was ill-timed and out of all proportion to the demands of the occasion. It was also done under a total misapprehension of the character of the people with whom we had to deal. We should have known that, whatever else the Haitian people may be, they are not cowards, and hence are not easily scared.

Frederick Douglass was blamed for the failure of the negotiations. He did resign the summer of 1891.

Logan says, “My own belief is that Douglass was sincerely desirous of protecting the interests of a country of the same race as his, while at the same time carrying out the wishes of his government and upholding the integrity of that government. His failure was due rather to the fact that there was no real public demand for the Môle, that Harrison was not prepared to use force.... After all, the Panama Canal had not been built; the United States had not even obtained her release from the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty so that she could construct a canal under her own control. The use of force against Haiti had to wait until the canal had been constructed, until the United States had become a world power, until a new period of recurrent revolutions had increased the impatience in the State Department, and until the attention fixed upon the World War permitted the military occupation of Haiti without arousing too much protest in the United Sates.”[34]

In 1893 the Haitian government appointed Douglass Haiti’s Commissioner to the World Columbian Exposition at Chicago; and in 1899 Haiti contributed the first thousand dollars toward the bronze statue of Frederick Douglass now standing in one of the public parks of Rochester. Speaking in 1932, Dantes Bellegarde, Haitian Minister to the United States, expressed the belief that were Frederick Douglass still living he “would be among those who most ardently approved the doctrine of international morality.... A policy respectful of the rights of small nations such as had been exemplified in the activities of Douglass while United States Minister in Haiti, is the only policy capable of assuring to a powerful nation like the United States the real and profound sympathy of the states of Latin America.”

Frederick Douglass was now nearly eighty years old. He had not retired from public life. His snow-white bushy hair, topping the straight, well-set figure was a familiar sight wherever people gathered to plan a stronger, nobler nation, to build a more understanding world. His faith in his country and in its ultimate destiny rendered him tolerant; his ready wit was gentle. Little knots of people gathered round him wherever he went and found themselves repeating his stories and remembering best of all his rare good humor. The villagers in Anacostia were proud of him. They told of the visitors who came from far and near seeking his home.

On the morning of February 15, 1895, Susan B. Anthony arrived in Washington to open the second triennial meeting of the National Woman’s Council. This was her seventy-fifth birthday, and that afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Douglass called to express their good wishes and congratulations.

The big open meeting of the session was to be February 20. During the morning Frederick Douglass appeared and, amid resounding applause, was invited to the platform by the president, Mrs. Sewall. He accepted, but declined to speak, acknowledging the applause only by a bow.

It was one of those bitterly cold days, and Douglass reached home just in time for supper. He was in high good spirits. Even while he shook off the snow and removed his boots in the hall he was recounting the happenings of the day.

“Miss Anthony was at her best!” he said as he stood before the big open fire, warming his hands.

“I’m a little tired,” he said after supper. He had started up the stairs and stopped, apparently to look at the picture of John Brown which hung there on the wall. His wife, in the living room, turned quickly. The phrase was unlike him.

And then he fell. He was dead before they could get him to his room.

All the great ones spoke at his funeral. Susan B. Anthony read Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s memorial to the only man who had sustained her demand for the enfranchisement of women at the first convention back in 1848.

There have been many memorials to him—in marble and bronze, in song and poetry. But stone and wood are dead, and only we can make words come alive. Frederick Douglass’ words reach us across the years:

Though I am more closely connected and identified with one class of outraged, oppressed and enslaved people, I cannot allow myself to be insensible to the wrongs and suffering of any part of the great family of man. I am not only an American slave, but a man, and as such, am bound to use my powers for the welfare of the whole human brotherhood.... I believe that the sooner the wrongs of the whole human family are made known, the sooner those wrongs will be reached.[35]

Epilogue

Any portion of the story of man’s struggle for freedom is marvelously strange. This is a true story, and therefore some footnotes are necessary. In many instances I have quoted directly from Frederick Douglass’ autobiographies. His own words, with their simple, forthright quality, form a clear picture of the man.

This book attempts to bring together many factors. I am therefore deeply indebted to all who have labored long and faithfully in compiling this story. Special mention must be made of W. E. B. Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction and John Brown, W. P. and F. J. Garrison’s William Lloyd Garrison, Ida Harper’s Susan B. Anthony, Rayford Logan’s Diplomatic Relations of the United States with Haiti, A. A. W. Ramsay’s Sir Robert Peel, J. T. Wilson’s The Black Phalanx and The Journal of Negro History, edited by Carter G. Woodson.

It was on a Sunday afternoon in April that I first climbed Anacostia Heights to Cedar Hill.

“Here are the terrace stairs,” they told me.

But I knew of the winding path that he had used, and I chose that. It is tangled and overgrown in places now, but up I went until I reached the sloping gardens and yes, there it was, just as I had expected, a lilac bush blooming where the path met the graveled walk!

A typical Virginia homestead, with veranda, carriage house and servants’ quarters, the house and grounds are preserved by the Douglass Memorial Association of Negro Women’s Clubs. I stood beside the sundial and tried to read its shadow, looked down into the well, and sat for a while on a stone seat beneath a flowering trellis.

It was so easy to see them on the porch or in the sunny living rooms with wide window-seats and fireplaces. Pictures looked down at me from every side—Susan B. Anthony, William Lloyd Garrison, the young and handsome Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips and Abraham Lincoln.

I sat dreaming at his desk a long time, fingering his notebooks and the yellowing accounting sheets upon which he had tried to balance that pitiful bank record. On three sides of the study books rose from floor to ceiling—worn and penciled books. Books about people were undoubtedly his favorites.

In the rooms upstairs were pictures and intimate small objects of family life, and in his room in a locked case I saw a rusty musket and a flag.

They opened the case for me, and I laid my face against the folds of John Brown’s flag. There it was in this year of 1946, still furled and standing in the corner of Frederick Douglass’ room.

I must have stayed in those rooms for some time, because suddenly I realized it was growing dark and that I was alone. A glass door stood ajar and I stepped through and out upon a little balcony, a tiny balcony where one could sit alone and think. Surely many times on just such spring evenings Douglass had stepped out on his balcony. Looking far over the group of houses clustered at the foot of the hill, he must have caught the gleam of the Potomac as I did, and beyond that all Washington spread out like a bit of magic. Washington Monument was not pointing to the sky in his day, but there was the beautiful rounded dome of the Capitol. He could see that Capitol of which he was so proud—he could contemplate all the intriguing pattern of the city which he loved so much, capital of the nation which he served so faithfully.

Then, all at once, as I stood there on the balcony, I knew why it was that in the evening of his life Frederick Douglass’ eyes were so serene. Not because he was lost in illusions of grandeur, not because he thought the goal attained, not because he thought all the people were marching forward. But as he stood there on his little balcony he could lift his eyes and, looking straight ahead, could see over the dome of the Capitol, steadfastly shedding its rays of hope and guidance, the north star.

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——, My Bondage and My Freedom. New York. Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855.

——, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Boston. De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., 1893.

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——, John Brown. Philadelphia. George W. Jacobs, 1909.

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Hart, Albert B., Slavery and Abolition. New York Harper & Brothers, 1906.

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Logan, Rayford W., Diplomatic Relations of United States with Haiti. University of North Carolina Press, 1941.

May, Samuel J., Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict. Boston. Fields, Osgood & Co., 1869.

Mansergh, Nicholas, Ireland in the Age of Reform and Revolution. London. G. Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1940.

Ramsey, A. A. W., Sir Robert Peel. London. Constable & Co., Ltd., 1928.

Wilson, Joseph Thomas, The Black Phalanx: History of the Negro Soldiers of the United States. Hartford. The American Publishing Co., 1897.

Woodson, Carter G. (editor), Journal of Negro History. Washington, 1935-46.

Footnotes