Part IV

TOWARD MORNING The seeds of the Declaration of Independence are slowly ripening.

—John Quincy Adams

Chapter Fifteen

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed

“When the Hebrews were emancipated they were told to take spoil from the Egyptians. When the serfs of Russia were emancipated, they were given three acres of ground upon which they could live and make a living. But not so when our slaves were emancipated. They were sent away empty-handed, without money, without friends, and without a foot of land to stand upon. Old and young, sick and well were turned loose to the open sky, naked to their enemies.”

Fifteen years later Douglass was to say this to a tense audience, their large eyes, so bright that “freedom morning,” veiled again with pain. If only Lincoln had been spared! How many times in the months and years had they harked back to that towering figure and asked, “Why?”

It is true that Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves was a war measure, but with the enactment of that measure the President steered the Ship of State into uncharted waters. To whom could he turn for counsel? Not to a Cabinet dolefully prophesying disaster; not to a Secretary of War who had considered the occupation of Sumter by United States soldiers a deadly insult to the Southern states; not to a General who vacillated, delayed, quarreled and called his own men “a confused mob, entirely demoralized.”

Lincoln sent for Frederick Douglass. It was proof of how far and how fast he was traveling. He had no precedent. Everything the President read or heard in his day treated all colored peoples as less than human. He was born and nurtured in the church which said fervent prayers of thanks that slavers “tore the savage from the wilds of Africa and brought him to Christianity.” The unquestioned inferiority of a black man was in the very air that Lincoln breathed. And yet he turned to Douglass.

He did not receive the dark man in the office of the Executive Mansion, but out on the back porch. There were times when the tinted walls, drapes and heavy rugs of the imposing house stifled this “common man” from the West. At such times he chose the porch, with its vista of green.

“Sit down, Mr. Douglass,” he said, motioning to a wide, easy chair. “I want to talk to you.”

Mainly he wished to confer that afternoon about the best means, outside the Army, to induce slaves in the rebel states to come within Federal lines.

“I fear that a peace might be forced upon me which would leave the former slaves in a kind of bondage worse even than that they have known.” Then he added, his voice heavy with disappointment, “They are not coming to us as rapidly and in as large numbers as I had hoped.”

Douglass replied that probably many obstacles were being placed in their path.

The President nodded his head. He was troubled in heart and mind. He said he was being accused of protracting the war beyond its legitimate object and of failing to make peace when he might have done so to advantage. He saw the dangers of premature peace, but mainly he wanted to prepare for what lay ahead when peace did come, early or late.

“Four millions suddenly added to the country’s population!” Lincoln said earnestly. “What can we do, Douglass?” Before Douglass could reply, the President leaned forward, his eyes intent. “I understand you oppose every suggestion for colonization.”

“That is true, Mr. Lincoln. Colonization is not the answer.”

“Why?”

“These people are not Africans. They know nothing about Africa—whatever roots they had have been destroyed. We were born here, in America.”

The President sighed.

“I realize our responsibility, Douglass. We cannot set back the clock. We brought your people here, we made them work for us. We owe them for all these years of labor. But the fact remains that they are alien and apart. Can they ever fit into the life of this country?”

Douglass spoke very gently.

“This is the only land we know, Mr. Lincoln. We have tilled its fields, we have cleared its forests, we have built roads and bridges. This is our home. We are alien and apart only because we have been forced apart.” Then he began to tell the President of Negroes who had been living and working in free states. He told of artisans and skilled craftsmen, of bakers, shoemakers and clockmakers; he told about schoolteachers, doctors, Negroes who, after being educated in Europe, had chosen to return.

Mr. Lincoln listened with growing amazement. Perhaps he thought to himself, If only all of them were like this man Douglass! But being the simple, honest soul he was, it is certain another thought came after, Few men are like this Douglass!

They sat together through the long summer afternoon, and worked out a plan. Other callers were turned away. “The President can see no one,” they were told.

They decided that Douglass would organize a band of colored scouts who would go into the South, beyond the Union Army lines, and bring the slaves together as free workers.

“They will be paid something. I can’t say what.”

“They will come, sir!”

From time to time Douglass scribbled a note of instruction for the President’s aides. Neither noticed the time. They were only concerned in mapping out a clear course of action. At last the President leaned back and the visitor gathered up his papers.

“From here,” Lincoln said, “we’ll move as we must. You will have to—”

His secretary came out on the porch. “Sir!” Lincoln nodded his head. “A courier has just arrived. He brings a communication from General Stephenson.”

Lincoln jerked himself erect.

“Show him out here!”

There was despair in the way the President pressed his hand against his forehead.

“It is bad news,” he explained. “Otherwise they would have wired.”

“I’ll go, sir!” Douglass rose to his feet. Lincoln’s tall form lifted itself. He looked out across the lawn without seeing it.

“Navy guns have been bombarding Fort Wagner for several days. We were planning an attack. Surely—” He stopped as the two men came out on the porch.

The courier was only a boy. His eyes were bloodshot, and his uniform was streaked and spattered. He swayed a little as he bowed and extended a letter.

“General Stephenson sends his greetings, sir.”

Lincoln’s eyes were on the boy as his shaking fingers tore at the envelope.

“Why do you not come from General Strong?”

“General Stephenson is now in command of the two brigades.” He stopped, but the President’s eyes still questioned him and he added, “General Strong and Colonel Putnam have been killed.”

Then Lincoln looked down at the single sprawled sheet. His lips began to move, and some of his words were distinct enough for Douglass to hear.

“On the night of July 18 we moved on Fort Wagner ... the Sixth Connecticut, Forty-eighth Infantry New York, Third New Hampshire, Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania, Ninth Maine....” He read on, then cried out, “Douglass! Listen to this!”

“The honor of leading the charge was given to the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts. I must report, sir, that these black soldiers advanced without flinching and held their ground in the face of blasting fire which mowed them down cruelly. Only a remnant of the thousand men can be accounted for. Their commander, Colonel Robert Shaw, is missing. We had counted on aid from the guns of the fleet—troops in the rear could not—” The President stopped.

Douglass’ breath had escaped from his tense body in a groan. Now he gasped.

“I must go—Forgive me. I must go to my wife!”

The President took a step toward him, understanding and concern in his face. “You mean—?”

“Our sons—Lewis and Charles—in the Fifty-fourth.”

Lincoln laid his hand on Douglass’ arm, then spoke quickly to his secretary.

“See that the courier has food and rest. Wire General Stephenson for the list.”

Then he was walking to the door with Douglass, his arm through his.

“Extend to your wife my deepest sympathy. I commend you both to God, who alone can give you strength. Keep me informed. You will hear from me.”

The news of the defeat ran on ahead of him. Anna was standing in the hall, waiting. He took her in his arms, and for a few moments neither spoke. Then she said, “There is no word—yet.”

Days passed, and they told themselves that no news was good news. Gradually names were made public. Horace Greeley hailed the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts as the “black phalanx.” Newspapers throughout the North said that the Negro soldier had “proven himself.” Southern papers used different words to tell the story, but they verified the fact that it was black bodies which filled the hastily dug trenches all around Fort Wagner. They had come upon a white body which was identified as the commander. It was said the order had been given to “dump him among his niggers!”

Anna Douglass wrote a letter to Robert Shaw’s mother, who lived in Boston.

“The struggle is now over for your brave son. Take comfort in the thought that he died as he lived, that he lies with those who loved him so devotedly.”

And still no word of Charles and Lewis.

Douglass did not tell Anna about a letter he had written to Abraham Lincoln. But when the reply came, he showed her the enclosed note, which read:

To whom it may concern:

The bearer of this, Frederick Douglass, is known to us as a loyal, free man, and is hence entitled to travel unmolested.

We trust he will be recognized everywhere as a free man and a gentleman.

Respectfully,

A. Lincoln, President I. K. Usha, Secretary

August 10, 1863

Anna lifted her eyes in a question.

“I’m going to South Carolina.”

She pressed her hand against her shaking lips.

“They’ll kill you—too!” she said. He shook his head.

“Our troops are encamped on the islands in and about Charleston harbor. The regiments are mixed up. There are so many wounded that I can be a real help by straightening out the record. Many homes do not know.” And he kissed her.

She watched him shave off his beard. She gave him a large box of food.

“I’ll find the boys!” His assurance cheered her.

He did find them—each on a different island—among the wounded. Charles thought him simply another figment of his feverish dreams. Lewis had been trying to get word out.

The news ran along the cots and out into the swamps:

“Frederick Douglass is here!”

Their cause was not lost.

There were times that fall when strong hearts quailed. Criticism against Abraham Lincoln mounted. Finally it became clear that Lincoln would not be re-elected by the politicians, the bankers, big business, or the press. The campaign of 1864 was, therefore, waged in country stores, at crossroads, from the backs of carts driving along city streets, in public squares and on church steps.

The young Republican party now had to face a completely united Democratic party which came forward with the story that the war was a failure. They chose the dismissed General George B. McClellan as their candidate and wrapped him in the ambiguous mist of an abused hero. But they reckoned without the inspired tactics of his successor, Ulysses S. Grant. The tide turned. “Lincoln’s man” was doing the job. Now Sherman was “marching to the sea,” and the backbone of the Confederacy was broken.

The people returned Abraham Lincoln to the White House.

With Lincoln safe, Douglass took the stump for the strengthening of the Emancipation Proclamation. The next step was to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery by law.

In October, Douglass and John Langston called a National Convention of Colored Men for a four-day session in Syracuse. People still could not believe that the war would end in complete emancipation of all slaves. Douglass called upon this convention of free artisans, craftsmen and laborers in the free Northern states to take their place inside the governmental framework.

“Events more mighty than men—eternal Providence, all-wide and all-controlling,” he told them, “have placed us in new relations to the government and the government to us. What that government is to us today, and what it will be tomorrow, is made evident by a very few facts. Look at them, colored men. Slavery in the District of Columbia is abolished forever; slavery in all the territories of the United States is abolished forever; the foreign slave trade, with its ten thousand revolting abominations, is rendered impossible; slavery in ten states of the Union is abolished forever; slavery in the five remaining states is as certain to follow the same fate as the night is to follow the day. The independence of Haiti is recognized; her minister sits beside our “Prime Minister,” Mr. Seward, and dines at his table in Washington, while colored men are excluded from the cars in Philadelphia ... a black man’s complexion in Washington, in the presence of the Federal government, is less offensive than in the City of Brotherly Love. Citizenship is no longer denied us under this government.”

The minutes of the convention were sent to President Lincoln. In December Lincoln laid the Thirteenth Amendment before Congress, and in January, 1865, slavery was forever abolished from any part of the United States “or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Tirelessly, ceaselessly, Lincoln weighed every move he made. No harsh words, no condemnation—he recognized human weakness. “Our responsibility,” he said. Not the South’s alone, not merely the slaveholder’s. He did not cant of “sins” and “virtues.”

He read the appeal addressed to Governor Shepley by the “free men of color” in New Orleans, asking to be allowed to “register and vote.” They reminded him of their defense of New Orleans against the British under General Jackson, and declared their present loyalty to the Union. In March he wrote the following letter to the newly elected Governor Hahn:

Executive Mansion, Washington March 13, 1864

Honorable Michael Hahn

My dear Sir: In congratulating you on having fixed your name in history as the first Free State Governor of Louisiana, now you are about to have a convention which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise, I barely suggest, for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let on, as for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help in some trying time in the future to keep the jewel of Liberty in the family of freedom. But this is only suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone.

Truly yours,

A. Lincoln[20]

Long afterward Douglass wondered if it was some awful presentiment that made his heart so heavy on the second Inauguration Day. Abraham Lincoln’s voice lacked the resonance and liquid sweetness with which men stirred vast audiences. He spoke slowly, carefully, as if each word were a gift of himself to them—his last words to his people.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

A blackness engulfed Douglass for a time. He was unconscious of having pushed forward. The ceremonies over, there was jostling and movement all around him. Then over the heads of all the crowd, he saw President Lincoln looking at him—he saw his face light up with a smile of welcome. Douglass started toward him when he was stopped by something else. Andrew Johnson, the Vice-President, stood beside Lincoln.

“Mr. Lincoln touched Mr. Johnson and pointed me out to him,” Douglass wrote, describing the incident. “The first expression which came to his face, and which I think was the true index of his heart, was one of bitter contempt and aversion. Seeing that I observed him, he tried to assume a more friendly appearance, but it was too late; it is useless to close the door when all within has been seen. His first glance was the frown of the man; the second was the bland and sickly smile of the demagogue.”[21]

He turned aside, again engulfed in gloom. “Whatever Andrew Johnson may be,” he thought, “he certainly is no friend of my race.”

The same evening in the spacious East Room, at such an affair as he had never in his own country been privileged to attend before, he tried to put aside his misgivings. He simply ignored the startled glances turned in his direction. His card of admission was beyond question.

Even in this most brilliant of gatherings, Frederick Douglass was an impressive figure. He was faultlessly groomed. His magnificent head towered over any crowd, and he moved with poise and dignity. It is no wonder that the President saw him standing in line among the others.

“Ah! Here comes my friend Douglass,” Lincoln said playfully.

Taking Douglass by the hand he said, “I saw you in the crowd today, listening to my speech. Did you like it?”

Douglass smiled, a little embarrassed. He had no desire to hold up the line.

“Mr. Lincoln, I mustn’t detain you with my opinions,” he almost whispered. “There are a thousand people waiting to shake hands with you.”

Lincoln was in an almost jovial mood that evening. He laughed softly.

“Nonsense,” he said, “stop a little, Douglass. There’s no man in the country whose opinion I value more than yours. I really want to know what you thought of it.”

Douglass tried to tell him. In the years to come he wished he had found better words.

“Mr. Lincoln, your words today were sacred,” he said. “They will never die.”

Lincoln seemed satisfied. His face lit up.

“I’m glad you liked it.”

Douglass rejoiced that Lincoln had his hour—an hour when he was bathed in joyful tears of gratitude. It happened on a soft, spring day in Richmond. General Weitzel had taken the city a few days before, with the Twenty-ninth Connecticut Colored Regiment at his back. Now on this April morning, the battered city was very still. White people who could leave had fled. The others shut themselves inside, behind closed doors and drawn shades. But lilacs were blooming in their yards.

It was a Negro soldier who saw the little rowboat pull up at the dock and a tall gaunt man, leading a little boy, step out. He waved back the sailors, who moved to follow him.

“We’ll go alone,” he said. Taking the little boy by the hand, he started up the embankment to the street.

“Which way to our headquarters?” he asked the soldier. The soldier had never seen Abraham Lincoln, but he recognized him. He saluted smartly.

“I’ll direct you, sir,” he offered. He was trembling. The President smiled and shook his head.

“Just tell me.”

It was straight ahead up the street—Jefferson Davis’ mansion. He couldn’t miss it. The soldier watched him go. He wanted to shout. He wanted to run—to spread the news—but he could not leave his post.

No conquering hero he—just a tired man, walking down the street, his deeply lined, sad face lifted to the few trees showing their spring leaves. All around him lay the ravages of war. Suddenly a black boy turned into the way and stared.

“Glory! Hit’s Mistah Lincoln!” he yelled.

And then they came from all the by-streets and the lanes. They came shouting his name, flinging their hats into the air, waving their hands. The empty streets thronged with black folks. They stretched their hands and called out:

“Gawd bless yo’, Mistah Lincolm!”

“T’ank yo’ kin’ly, Mistah Lincolm!”

“T’ank yo’! Praise de Lawd!”

An old man dropped upon his knees and kissed his hand.

They saw the tears streaming down Lincoln’s face, and a hush fell over those nearest him as he laid his hand upon the bowed white head, then stooped and helped the old man to his feet.

“God bless you—God keep you all!” Lincoln could say no more at the moment. They allowed him to move along his way, but by the time he had reached his destination as far as he could see the streets were black.

They waited while he went inside—waiting, cheering, and singing at intervals. When he came out he stood on the high steps and lifted his hands for silence. Many of them dropped on their knees and all listened, their faces turned to him as to the sun. He spoke simply, sharing their joy. He accepted their devotion, but he said, “God has made you free.” They knew he had come from God.

“Although you have been deprived of your God-given rights by your so-called masters, you are now as free as I am; and if those that claim to be your superiors do not know that you are free, take the sword and bayonet and teach them that you are—for God created all men free, giving to each the same rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

He went away with their voices in his ears. A few days later came Appomattox; and Lincoln, his face flushed, his eyes bright, his strength renewed by secret wells of energy, covered his desk with plans for reconstruction. Not a day to lose, not a moment. The wounds must be healed, a better, stronger nation rise.

The President called his Cabinet together for April 14, then sent a wire off to William Lloyd Garrison asking him to go to Fort Sumter for the raising of the Stars and Stripes there. Garrison joyfully obeyed. With him were Henry Ward Beecher and George Thompson, antislavery men who could now rejoice.

The flag was raised, and singing filled the air; the waters were covered with flowers, and the guns fired their triumphant salute. They were on the steamer headed farther south when, at Beaufort, they were handed a telegram.

Abraham Lincoln was dead!

“I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.”

Chapter Sixteen

Moving forward

The American Anti-Slavery Society disbanded and its agents were withdrawn from the fields. The last number of the Liberator came out.

“The object for which the liberator was commenced thirty-five years ago having been gloriously consummated—” wrote the white-haired editor. He could now close his office. The slaves were free—his job was finished. Garrison sailed for England and the Continent.

Frederick Douglass, dragging himself through the weeks, hardly heeded what was being done. He caught some words of Wendell Phillips’ passionate plea: the Thirteenth Amendment had not yet become law; even after ratification it had to be carried out. But he had taken no part in the discussions. His occupation was gone and his salary—the Anti-Slavery Society had paid him about five hundred dollars a year—cut off. Lewis came home. Frederic was working with the Freedman’s Bureau in Mississippi. Douglass made sporadic attempts to think of how he would earn a living. The newspaper hung heavy on his hands. An idea occurred to him. With the few thousand dollars Anna had saved from the sales of his book, My Bondage and My Freedom, he had best buy a farm, settle down and earn an honest living by tilling the soil.

But nothing seemed of any real importance.

“John Brown and Abraham Lincoln!” He lay awake at night linking the two names. Time seemed endless.

Yet it was only the latter part of June when President Johnson made Benjamin F. Perry, former member of the Confederate legislature, the Provisional Governor of South Carolina. Perry promptly put things back the way they had been “before Lincoln.” He conferred suffrage upon all citizens who had been legal voters prior to Secession. He called for an election by these people of delegates to a Constitutional Convention to be held in September. In his opening address as Provisional Governor, the Honorable Mr. Perry stated his platform very clearly. “This is a white man’s government, and intended for white men only.”

Horace Greeley reported the facts in the Tribune together with a grim editorial.

Douglass shook with rage. His anger was directed not at the Southern Provisional Governor but at the man who now sat in Abraham Lincoln’s place. For a moment his hate for Andrew Johnson consumed every rational thought. Then his mind began to clear—to race, to leap forward. The moment broke his lethargy.

“John Brown and Lincoln—yes!” He spoke aloud. “But I’m living. I am still here!” He struck the desk with his fist. “And by God we’ll fight!”

Then, seizing his pen, he swept aside the papers that had been gathering dust, and on a clean white page he began to write.

“The liberties of the American people are dependent upon the ballot-box, the jury box and the cartridge box.... Freedmen must have the ballot if they would retain their freedom!”

His words sounded across the country. In many instances they filled people, already worn out and war-weary, with dismay. The ballot was such a vast advance beyond the former objects proclaimed by the friends of the colored race that it struck men as preposterous and wholly inadmissible. Antislavery men were far from united as to the wisdom of Douglass’ stand. At first William Lloyd Garrison was not ready to join in the idea, but he was soon found on the right side. As Douglass said of him, “A man’s head will not long remain wrong, when his heart is right.”

But if at first Garrison thought it was too much to ask, Wendell Phillips saw not only the justice, but the wisdom and necessity, of the measure.

“I shall never leave the Negro until, so far as God gives me the power, I achieve [absolute equality before the law—absolute civil equality],” he thundered from his pulpit.

Enfranchisement of the freedmen was resisted on two main grounds: first, the tendency of the measure to bring the freedmen into conflict with the old master-class and the white people of the South generally; second, their unfitness, by reason of their ignorance, servility and degradation, to exercise over the destinies of the nation so great a power as the ballot.

“We’ve set them free! By Heaven, that’s enough! Let them go to work and prove themselves!” So spake the North, anxious to get back to “business as usual.”

But deep down in the land there was a mighty stirring. Words had been said that could not be recalled—henceforth, and forever free.

There were no stories of killings, massacre or rape by the freed blacks. Whitelaw Reid, touring the South, reported: “The Negroes everywhere are quiet, respectful and peaceful; they are the only group at work.” And the Alexandria Gazette said “the Negroes generally behave themselves respectfully toward the whites.”

At first there was much roaming about. Husbands set out to find wives; and wives, idle, sat on the flat ground, believing they would come. Mothers who had never set foot off the plantation, struck out across the country to find their children; and children—like dirty, scared, brown animals—swarmed aimlessly. There was sickness and death. Freedman’s Aid Societies floundered around in a vacuum, well-intentioned, doling out relief here and there; but what the black man needed was a place where he could stand—a tiny, little part of the great earth and a tool in his right hand.

William Freeland, master of Freelands, sat on his high-pillared porch staring at the unkempt, tangled yard. Weeds and briers choking everything—shrubbery, close-fisted, intricately branched, suffocating the rambler. In the fields beyond, nothing was growing save long grass, thistles and fierce suckers; and over the pond a scum had gathered, frothing and buoyed with its own gases.

Though past sixty when the war began, William Freeland, ashamed that Maryland was undecided, had gone to Richmond and volunteered. He had cut a fine figure riding away on his horse—his well-tailored gray uniform setting off the iron gray of his hair. The ladies of Richmond had leaned from their windows, fluttering lace handkerchiefs. They would not have recognized him when he came back to Freelands. His hair was thinned and white, his uniform a tattered, filthy rag; the bony nag he rode could scarcely make it to the old sycamore.

But the house still stood. It had not been pillaged or burned. His land had not been plowed with cannon; it was not soaked with blood. Suddenly the spring evening was cold, and he shuddered. Involuntarily his hand reached toward the bell. Then it fell back. No one would answer. Old Sue was in the kitchen, but she was too deaf to hear.

He would have to get some help on the place. The thought of paying wages to the ungrateful blacks filled him with rage. The cause of all the suffering and woe, they had turned on their masters, running after Yankees. Some of them had even shot white men! Gall bit into his soul as he remembered the strutting colored soldiers in Richmond.

The sound of a cart coming up the drive broke into his gloomy meditation. The master frowned. A side road led around to the back. Peddlers’ carts had no place on the drive. Then he remembered. This was probably the man he was expecting—impudent upstart! His hand shook, but he braced himself. He had promised to listen to him.

“He’s likely a damn Yankee, though he claims he’s from Georgia,” Freeland’s friend, the Colonel, had said. “But he’s got a scheme for getting the niggers back in their place. He says they’re dying like flies on the roads, they’ll be glad to get back to work. Just bide your time, old man, we’ll have all our niggers back. Where can they go?”

The master did not rise to greet his guest. He hated the sniveling oaf. But before the cart went rumbling back along the drive the owner of Freelands had parted with precious dollars.

Similar transactions were being carried on all over the South that spring.

“Were the planters willing to bestow the same amount of money upon the laborers as additional wages, as they pay to runners and waste in dishonest means of compulsion, they would have drawn as many voluntary and faithful laborers as they now obtain reluctant ones. But there are harpies, who, most of them, were in the slave trade, and who persuade planters to use them as brokers to supply the plantations with hands, at the same time using all means to deceive the simple and unsophisticated laborer.”[22]

But things were stirring in the land. Frederick Douglass in Rochester sending out his paper—sending it South! The handsome, popular Francis L. Cardoza, charming young Negro Presbyterian minister in New Haven, Connecticut, resigning his Church and saying, “I’m going South!”

“What!” his parishioners exclaimed.

“Going to Charleston, South Carolina.” And he grinned almost impishly while they stared at him, wondering if they had heard right. Francis Cardoza had been in school in Europe while the Anti-Slavery Societies were lighting their fires. Having finished his work at the University of Glasgow, he had accepted a call from New Haven. But now he heard another call—more urgent. He packed up his books. He would need them in South Carolina—land of his fathers.

Three colored refugees from Santo Domingo pooled their assets and started a paper in New Orleans. They called it the New Orleans Tribune, and published it as a daily during 1865. After that year it continued as a weekly until sometime in 1869. It was published in French and English, and copies were sent to members of Congress. Its editor, Paul Trevigne, whose father had fought in the War of 1812, wanted to bring Louisiana “under a truly democratic system of labor.” He cited a new plan of credit for the people being tried in Europe. “We, too, need credit for the laborers,” he wrote. “We cannot expect complete and perfect freedom for the workingmen, as long as they remain the tools of capital and are deprived of the legitimate product of the sweat of their brow.”[23]

It was in September that a friend in South Carolina sent Douglass a clipping from the Columbia Daily Phoenix, certainly not an Abolitionist sheet. It was dated September 23, 1865, and as Douglass read his face lighted up with joy. Here was the right and proper challenge to Provisional Governor Perry—a challenge from within his own state! “A large meeting of freedmen, held on St. Helena Island on the 4th instant” had adopted a set of resolutions—five clearly stated, well-written paragraphs. Douglass reprinted the entire account in his own paper, crediting its source. People read and could scarcely believe what they read—coming as it did from the “ignorant, servile blacks” in the lowlands.

1. Resolved, That we, the colored residents of St. Helena Island, do most respectfully petition the Convention about to be assembled at Columbia, on the 13th instant, to so alter and amend the present Constitution of this state as to give the right of suffrage to every man of twenty-one years, without other qualifications than that required for the white citizens of the states.

2. Resolved, That, by the Declaration of Independence, we believe these are rights which cannot justly be denied us, and we hope the Convention will do us full justice by recognizing them.

3. Resolved, That we will never cease our efforts to obtain, by all just and legal means, a full recognition of our rights as citizens of the United States and this Commonwealth.

4. Resolved, That, having heretofore shown our devotion to the Government, as well as our willingness to defend its Constitution and laws, therefore we trust that the members of the Convention will see the justice of allowing us a voice in the election of our rulers.

5. Resolved, That we believe the future peace and welfare of this state depends very materially upon the protection of the interests of the colored men and can only be secured by the adoption of the sentiments embodied in the foregoing resolutions.

The week of the thirteenth came and went. Douglass scanned the papers in vain for any mention of the petition or of anything concerning the “new citizens” of South Carolina. In October came a letter from Francis Cardoza, whom Douglass had met but did not know very well. He said, “I wish to thank you for giving publicity to the petition sent in by our people on St. Helena. Your co-operation strengthened their hearts. As you know, as yet nothing has come of it, nor of the longer document drawn up and presented by 103 Negroes assembled in Charleston. I have a copy of the Charleston petition. Should you be in Washington any time soon I’ll gladly meet you there with it. These men are neither to be pitied nor scorned. They know that they are only at the beginning. With the ballot they will become useful, responsible, functioning citizens of the state. Without the ballot—sooner or later, there will be war.”

Douglass immediately got in touch with certain influential men. “I propose,” he said, “that a committee go to Washington and lay the matter of the freedmen’s enfranchisement squarely before President Johnson.” His face darkened for a moment. “Perhaps I misjudge the man,” he added. “He is faced with a gigantic task. It is our duty to give him every assistance.”

They rallied round, and a delegation of colored people from Illinois, Wisconsin, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the New England states and the District of Columbia was called together. George Downing, of Rhode Island, and Frederick Douglass were named spokesmen. A letter was dispatched to the White House requesting an interview with the President.

After several weeks, the answer came. The President would receive the delegation February 7. Douglass sent off a note to Cardoza saying when he would be in Washington and suggesting the home of “my dear friend, Mrs. Amelia Kemp” as the place of meeting.

An account of Johnson’s interview with the “Negro delegation” has gone into the historical archives of Washington. It received nationwide publicity both because of what was said and because of Frederick Douglass’ gift for rebuttal.

“Until that interview,” Douglass wrote in his Life and Times, “the country was not fully aware of the intentions and policy of President Johnson on the subject of reconstruction, especially in respect of the newly emancipated class of the South. After having heard the brief addresses made to him by Mr. Downing and myself, he occupied at least three-quarters of an hour in what seemed a set speech, and refused to listen to any reply on our part, although solicited to grant a few moments for that purpose. Seeing the advantage that Mr. Johnson would have over us in getting his speech paraded before the country in the morning papers, the members of the delegation met on the evening of that day, and instructed me to prepare a brief reply, which should go out to the country simultaneously with the President’s speech to us. Since this reply indicates the points of difference between the President and ourselves, I produce it here as a part of the history of the times, it being concurred in by all the members of the delegation.”

1. The first point to which we feel especially bound to take exception, is your attempt to found a policy opposed to our enfranchisement, upon the alleged ground of an existing hostility on the part of the former slaves toward the poor white people of the South. We admit the existence of this hostility, and hold that it is entirely reciprocal. But you obviously commit an error by drawing an argument from an incident of slavery, and making it a basis for a policy adapted to a state of freedom. The hostility between the whites and blacks of the South is easily explained. It has its root and sap in the relation of slavery, and was incited on both sides by the cunning of the slave masters. Those masters secured their ascendancy over both the poor whites and blacks by putting enmity between them.

They divided both to conquer each. There was no earthly reason why the blacks should not hate and dread the poor whites when in a state of slavery, for it was from this class that their masters received their slave-catchers, slave-drivers, and overseers. They were the men called in upon all occasions by the masters whenever any fiendish outrage was to be committed upon the slave. Now, sir, you cannot but perceive that, the cause of this hatred removed, the effect must be removed also. Slavery is abolished.... You must see that it is altogether illogical to legislate from slaveholding premises for a people whom you have repeatedly declared it your purpose to maintain in freedom.

2. Besides, even if it were true, as you allege, that the hostility of the blacks toward the poor whites must necessarily project itself into a state of freedom, and that this enmity between the two races is even more intense in a state of freedom than in a state of slavery, in the name of heaven, we ask how can you, in view of your professed desire to promote the welfare of the black man, deprive him of all means of defense, and clothe him whom you regard as his enemy in the panoply of political power? Can it be that you recommend a policy which would arm the strong and cast down the defenseless?... Peace between races is not to be secured by degrading one race and exalting another; by giving power to one race and withholding it from another; but by maintaining a state of equal justice between all classes.

3. On the colonization theory you were pleased to broach, very much could be said. It is impossible to suppose, in view of the usefulness of the black man in time of peace as a laborer in the South, and in time of war as a soldier in the North ... that there can ever come a time when he can be removed from this country without a terrible shock to its prosperity and peace. Besides, the worst enemy of the nation could not cast upon its fair name a greater infamy than to admit that Negroes could be tolerated among them in a state of the most degrading slavery and oppression, and must be cast away, driven into exile, for no other cause than having been freed from their chains.[24]

The open letter written, one of the delegation hurried away with it to the press. They had repaired to the home of John F. Cook, Washington member of the delegation. He invited Douglass to remain for the night, but Douglass explained that he had yet another appointment and that he was expected at the home of an old friend. Douglass now stood up and, shaking his shoulders, made ready to leave.

The weather outside was nasty. A wet, driving snow had turned the streets into muddy slush; the wooden sidewalks were slippery and the crossings were ditches of black water. Douglass fastened his boots securely and turned up the collar of his coat.

“Can you find your way, Douglass?” asked Dr. Cook. “The streets are so poorly lighted, and on a night like this a stranger could easily get lost. If you’ll wait a little I’ll be glad to—”

Douglass interrupted. “No, indeed, Doctor. I know the way very well. It’s not far.”

Meanwhile, “Miss Amelia” was finding Francis Cardoza good company. He was one of the handsomest men she had ever seen. The little lady’s eyes twinkled, and her cheeks were flushed.

Tom’s widow was not as spry as she once was. Days and nights of nursing in the Soldiers’ Home had brought weights heavier than years upon her valiant frame. Now she was old. But she could take things easy. Jack Haley was head of the house. The boarders could not be prevailed upon to move, and the dark woman in the kitchen would have served just as faithfully without wages. Frederick’s supper was being kept warm on the back of the stove and his room was ready. She lifted the shade and peered anxiously out into the dark night.

“I do hope he gets a cab. This is a bad night for him to be out on these streets alone.” Her guest smiled.

“Frederick Douglass can take care of himself, madam,” he said. “You should not worry about him.”

“Oh, but I do!” And Amelia’s blue eyes opened wide. Francis Cardoza, his eyes on the white hands and pulsing, crinkled throat, marveled anew at the children of God.

When Douglass came he was deeply apologetic, but they waved aside his concern.

“It is nothing,” they said. “We knew you were busy.”

Amelia would not let them talk until he had eaten, and when he shook his head, saying he could not keep Mr. Cardoza waiting any longer, Cardoza laughed.

“Might as well give in, Mr. Douglass.”

So they all went to the dining room, and Amelia insisted that the young man join her Frederick in his late supper.

Here in the friendly room, beside the roaring fire, the happenings of the day no longer seemed so crushing. He told them everything, and they listened, feeling his disappointment. Then Amelia spoke their thought aloud.

“If only Mr. Lincoln had lived!”

She left them then after explaining to Douglass, “I invited Mr. Cardoza to spend the night, but he has relatives here in Washington.”

They were both on their feet, bowing as she left. Amelia smiled and thought, “Always such lovely manners.”

The two men settled down before the fire for serious talk. Francis Cardoza was well informed. He might easily be taken for a white man, and so had heard much not intended for his ears.

“I talked today with Thaddeus Stevens,” he told Douglass. “I told him what I had seen of the black codes, and he told me of Senator Sumner’s magnificent speech in the Senate two days ago. He swears they’ll get the Civil Rights Bill through in spite of Johnson.”

“And I believe they will!” Douglass agreed. He leaned forward eagerly. “You have brought the petition?”

“Yes, sir.” Cardoza was unfolding a manuscript. “Here is an exact copy of the document presented by us to the Convention assembled at Columbia. These words of the freedmen of South Carolina are our best argument. Read!” He handed the sheets to Douglass.

It was a long document and Douglass read slowly. This then came from “those savage blacks”!

... Our interests and affections are inseparably interwoven with the welfare and prosperity of the state.... We assure your honorable body that such recognition of our manhood as this petition asks for, is all that is needed to convince the colored people of this state that the white men of the state are prepared to do them justice.

Let us also assure your honorable body that nothing short of this, our respectful demand, will satisfy our people. If our prayer is not granted, there will doubtless be the same quiet and seemingly patient submission to wrong that there has been in the past. The day for which we watched and prayed came as we expected it; the day of our complete enfranchisement will also come; and in that faith we will work and wait.[25]

Douglass sat staring at the last sheet a long time. The simple majesty of the words rendered him speechless. His voice was husky.

“I wish I could have read this to President Johnson today. No words of mine can equal it.”

“President Johnson was already incensed by Senator Sumner’s words,” Cardoza reminded him.

Douglass was silent for a moment. Then he spoke slowly.

“I want to be fair to President Johnson. In criticizing our friend Charles Sumner he said, ‘I do not like to be arraigned by someone who can get up handsomely-rounded periods and deal in rhetoric and talk about abstract ideas of liberty, who never periled life, liberty, or property.’” Douglass tapped the closely written sheets. “Well, here are men who even now are imperiling life, liberty and property. Perhaps he would have listened.”

“When he spoke to the Negroes of Nashville before his election, Johnson expressed his eagerness to be another Moses who would lead the black peoples from bondage to freedom.” Cardoza had been in Nashville a short time before.

“Notice that even then he said he would do the leading.” There was bitterness in Douglass’ voice. “Apparently he’s not willing for the black man to stand up and walk to freedom on his two feet.”

Washington was emerging from the enveloping darkness when Francis Cardoza took his leave.

As he walked through the silent, gray street past the Representatives Office Building he saw a light faintly showing through one of the windows. He murmured his thought aloud.

“We’re beating a nation out upon the anvil of time. The fires must be kept hot!”

Inside the building a tired, thin man with deeply furrowed face pushed back his chair and for a moment covered his eyes with his hand. Then he glanced toward the window, and his mouth crooked into a smile. He’d have to explain at home. Again he had stayed out all night. His desk was covered with papers. He would go home now, drink some coffee. That morning he proposed to demand the floor. He had something to say. He paused a moment and re-read one scribbled paragraph:

“This is not a white man’s Government, in the exclusive sense in which it is said. To say so is political blasphemy, for it violates the fundamental principles of our gospel of liberty. This is Man’s Government, the Government of all men alike; not that all men will have equal power and sway within it. Accidental circumstances, natural and acquired endowment and ability, will vary their fortunes. But equal rights to all the privileges of the Government is innate in every immortal being, no matter what the shape or color of the tabernacle which it inhabits. Our fathers repudiated the whole doctrine of the legal superiority of families or races, and proclaimed the equality of men before the law. Upon that they created a revolution and built the Republic.”[26]

Thaddeus Stevens arranged the papers in a neat pile, straightened his wig and stood up. Then he took down his overcoat from the rack and put it on. His feet echoed in the dim, empty corridor. A Negro attendant in the lobby saw him coming. The dark face lit up with a smile and his greeting sang like a tiny hymn.

“Good mawnin’, Mistah Stevens—Good mawnin’ to you, sah!”

And Thaddeus Stevens did not feel the chill in the air as he walked down the steps and out into the wet, gray dawn.

“The war is not over!” Douglass said grimly to his son Lewis. “The battle is far from won. Not yet can I unfurl John Brown’s flag in a land of the free!”

On the other hand, he knew the battle was not lost. But the Abolitionists’ fundamental tenet of “moral persuasion” would have to have a firm structure of legislation—or the house would come tumbling down.

Stout girders for this structure were being lifted all over the land, in the least expected places.

On January 1, 1867, the African Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia, was packed for an Emancipation Celebration. In the midst of the singing and praying and shouting a young white man rose in the audience and, going forward, asked if he might say a word.

“My name’s James Hunnicut and I’m from South Carolina,” he said. A mother hushed her child with a sharp hiss. The dark faces were suddenly cautious. The young man went on.

“This is a happy birthday for you—a day to be remembered with great joy.” He waited until the fervent “Amens” and “Hallelujahs” had died away. He took a step forward and his voice grew taut.

“But now each time you come together I urge you to look into the future.”

Then in simple words that all could understand he talked to them of what it meant to be a citizen. He explained the machinery of government. He told them they must register and vote in the fall elections. Some of the men grew tense. They had discussed plans. To others it was new, and all leaned forward eagerly.

“When you are organized,” he said, “help to elect a loyal governor and loyal congressmen. Do not vote for men who opposed your liberty—no matter what they say now. Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouths shut. Educate yourselves—and go to the ballot boxes with your votes tight in your hands!”

The young folks cheered him with a kind of madness. But some of the older ones shook their heads.

A week after this happened, Frederick Douglass, on his way to Chicago, found that he could stop off at Galesburg, Illinois, in time for a local emancipation mass meeting. Galesburg was known as an Abolitionists’ town. In the town’s old Dunn Hall they had hauled up the biggest guns of the 1860 campaign. The county had gone almost solid for Abraham Lincoln, though the Hall had given its greatest ovation to one of the stoutest advocates of Stephen A. Douglas. The speaker had been Robert Ingersoll, a young man from Peoria. Now seven years later, when they planned to celebrate emancipation, the Negroes asked Robert Ingersoll to deliver the main address. Douglass had been wanting to hear Ingersoll for a year.

“On one of the frostiest and coldest nights I ever experienced,” Douglass wrote, “I delivered a lecture in the town of Elmwood, Illinois, twenty miles from Peoria. It was one of those bleak and flinty nights, when prairie winds pierce like needles, and a step on the snow sounds like a file on the steel teeth of a saw. My next appointment after Elmwood was on Monday night, and in order to reach it in time, it was necessary to go to Peoria the night previous, so as to take an early morning train. I could only accomplish this by leaving Elmwood after my lecture at midnight, for there was no Sunday train. So a little before the hour at which my train was expected at Elmwood, I started for the station with my friend Mr. Brown. On the way I said to him, ‘I’m going to Peoria with something like a real dread of the place. I expect to be compelled to walk the streets of that city all night to keep from freezing.’ I told him that the last time I was there I could obtain no shelter at any hotel and I knew no one in the city. Mr. Brown was visibly affected by the statement and for some time was silent. At last, as if suddenly discovering a way out of a painful situation, he said, ‘I know a man in Peoria, should the hotels be closed against you there, who would gladly open his doors to you—a man who will receive you at any hour of the night, and in any weather, and that man is Robert G. Ingersoll.’ ‘Why,’ said I, ‘it would not do to disturb a family at such a time as I shall arrive there, on a night so cold as this.’ ‘No matter about the hour,’ he said; ‘neither he nor his family would be happy if they thought you were shelterless on such a night. I know Mr. Ingersoll, and that he will be glad to welcome you at midnight or at cockcrow.’ I became much interested by this description of Mr. Ingersoll. Fortunately I had no occasion for disturbing him or his family that night. I did find quarters for the night at the best hotel in the city.”[27]

He had left Peoria the next morning. But his desire to meet the Peoria lawyer had increased with the passing months—not the least because he usually heard him referred to as “the infidel.”

The train was late pulling into Galesburg. Douglass took a cab at the station and was driven directly to Dunn’s Hall. The place was jammed with people, and the meeting well under way. Douglass saw that the crowd was largely colored. That meant a lot of them had come a long distance. Among so many strangers he hoped to get in without attracting attention.

He succeeded, but it was because the attention of the throng was riveted on the speaker who faced them on the platform far up front. Only those persons whom he pushed against even saw the big man with the upturned coat collar.

Douglass later described Robert G. Ingersoll as a man “with real living human sunshine in his face.” It was this quality of dynamic light about the man up front which made him stare on that January night. He had come prepared to be impressed, but he was amazed at the almost childlike freshness of the fair, smooth face with its wide-set eyes. Ingersoll was of fine height and breadth, his mouth as gentle as a woman’s, but, as Douglass began taking in what the man was saying, his wonder grew.

“Slavery has destroyed every nation that has gone down to death. It caused the last vestige of Grecian civilization to disappear forever, and it caused Rome to fall with a crash that shook the world. After the disappearance of slavery in its grossest forms in Europe, Gonzales pointed out to his countrymen, the Portuguese, the immense profits that they could make by stealing Africans, and thus commenced the modern slave trade—that aggregation of all horror—infinite of all cruelty, prosecuted only by demons, and defended only by fiends.

“And yet the slave trade has been defended and sustained by every civilized nation, and by each and all has been baptized ‘legitimate commerce’ in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.”

Douglass felt a chill descend his spine.

He told them that every great movement must be led by heroic, self-sacrificing pioneers. Then his voice took on another quality.

“In Santo Domingo the pioneers were Oge and Chevannes; they headed a revolt, they were unsuccessful, but they roused the slaves to resistance. They were captured, tried, condemned and executed. They were made to ask forgiveness of God and of the King, for having attempted to give freedom to their own flesh and blood. They were broken alive on the wheel and left to die of hunger and pain. The blood of those martyrs became the seed of liberty; and afterward in the midnight assault, in the massacre and pillage, the infuriated slaves shouted their names as their battle cry, until Toussaint, the greatest of the blacks, gave freedom to them all.”

He quoted Thomas Paine: No man can be happy surrounded by those whose happiness he has destroyed. And Thomas Jefferson: When the measure of their tears shall be full—when their groans shall have involved heaven itself in darkness—doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress and, by diffusing light and liberality among the oppressors or at length by his exterminating thunder, manifest his attention to the things of this world and that they are not left to the guidance of a blind fatality.

He named Garrison, who was “for liberty as a principle and not from mere necessity.”

A cheer went up from the crowd. Douglass’ heart was glad as he heard it. Ingersoll then talked of Wendell Phillips, and of Charles Sumner, who at that moment was battling for the freedmen in Congress. His voice deepened, his great eyes became soft pools of light.

“But the real pioneer in America was old John Brown,” he said. There was no cheer this time. They bowed their head and the golden voice was like a prayer.

“He struck the sublimest blow of the age for freedom. It was said of him that he stepped from the gallows to the throne of God. It was said that he had made the scaffold to Liberty what Christ had made the cross to Christianity.”

They wept softly. Douglass, his hands clenched, lost himself in memories. When he heard the voice again it was ringing.

“In reconstructing the Southern states ... we prefer loyal blacks to disloyal whites.... Today I am in favor of giving the Negro every right that I claim for myself.

“We must be for freedom everywhere. Freedom is progress—slavery is desolation and want; freedom invents, slavery forgets. Freedom believes in education; the salvation of slavery is ignorance.

“The South has always dreaded the alphabet. They looked upon each letter as an Abolitionist, and well they might.” There was laughter.

“If, in the future, the wheel of fortune should take a turn, and you should in any country have white men in your power, I pray you not to execute the villainy we have taught you.” The old Hall was still. Ingersoll was drawing to a close. “... Stand for each other and above all stand for liberty the world over—for all men.”[28]

Douglass slipped out. He heard the thunder of applause. It filled the winter night as he hurried away. He walked for a long time down the unfamiliar streets, the snow crunching under his feet, but he did not feel the cold. His blood raced through his veins, his brain was on fire, his heart sang.

He had seen a shining angel brandishing his sword.

He had also found a friend. He would clasp Ingersoll’s hand in his maturity, as the young Douglass had clasped the hands of William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown.

Chapter Seventeen

Fourscore years ago in Washington

“The future of the freedmen is linked with the destiny of Labor in America. Negroes, thank God, are workers.”

New words being added to the song of freedom. In 1867, in the District of Columbia, colored workers came together in a mass meeting. They asked Congress to secure equal apportionment of employment to white and colored labor. Their petition was printed, and a committee of fifteen was appointed to circulate it. Similar meetings were held in Kentucky, Indiana and in Pennsylvania.

A year and a half later, in January, 1869, they called a national convention in Washington. Among the one hundred and thirty delegates from all parts of the country came Henry M. Turner, black political leader of Georgia. Resolutions were passed in favor of universal suffrage, the opening of public lands in the South for Negroes, the Freedman’s Bureau, a national tax for Negro schools, and the reconstruction policy of Congress. They opposed any plan for colonization.

Frederick Douglass was elected permanent president. Resolutions were passed advocating industrious habits, the learning of trades and professions, distribution of government lands, suffrage for all—including women—and “free school systems, with no distinction on account of race, color, sex or creed.”

The January convention, though not primarily a labor group, backed industrial emancipation. Eleven months later a distinctly labor convention met and stayed in session a full week at Union League Hall in Washington.

In February, 1870, the Bureau of Labor ran an article on the need of organized Negro labor. Shortly afterward, the Colored National Labor Union came into being, with the New Era, a weekly paper, its national organ. Frederick Douglass was asked to become editor-in-chief.

People wanted Douglass to go into politics. Rochester, with a population of over sixty thousand white citizens and only about two hundred colored, had sent him as delegate to a national political convention in the fall of 1866. The National Loyalists’ Convention held in Philadelphia was composed of delegates from the South, North and West. Its object was to lay down the principles to be observed in the reconstruction of society in the Southern states.

Though he had been sent by a “white vote,” all was not clear sailing for Douglass. His troubles started on the delegates’ special train headed for Philadelphia. At Harrisburg it was coupled to another special from the southwest—and the train began to rock! After a hurried consultation it was decided that the “Jonah” in their midst had better be tossed overboard. The spokesman chosen to convey this decision to the victim was a gentleman from New Orleans, of low voice and charming manners. “I credit him with a high degree of politeness and the gift of eloquence,” said Douglass.

He began by exhibiting his knowledge of Douglass’ history and of his works, and said that he entertained toward him a very high respect. He assured the delegate from Rochester that the gentlemen who sent him, as well as those who accompanied him, regarded the Honorable Mr. Douglass with admiration and that there was not among them the remotest objection to sitting in convention with so distinguished a gentleman. Then he paused, daintily wiping his hands on a spotless handkerchief. Having tucked the linen back into his pocket, he spread his hands expressively and leaned forward. Was it, he asked, not necessary to set aside personal wishes for the common cause? Before Douglass could answer, he shrugged his shoulders and went on. After all, it was purely a question of party expediency. He must know that there was strong and bitter prejudice against his race in the North as well as in the South. They would raise the cry of social as well as political equality against the Republicans, if the famous Douglass attended this loyal national convention.

There were tears in the gentleman’s voice as he deplored the sacrifices which one must make for the good of the Republican cause. But, he pointed out, there were a couple of districts in the state of Indiana so evenly balanced that a little thing was likely to turn the scale against them, defeat their candidates, and thus leave Congress without the necessary two-thirds vote for carrying through the so-badly needed legislation.

“It is,” he ended, lifting his eyes piously, “only the good God who gives us strength for such sacrifice.”

Douglass had listened attentively to this address, uttering no word during its delivery. The spokesman leaned back in his seat. The three delegates who had accompanied him and who had remained standing in the aisle, turned to leave. They stopped in their tracks, however, at the sound of Douglass’ voice. It was a resonant voice, with rich overtones, and his words were heard distinctly by everyone in the car.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “with all due respect, you might as well ask me to put a loaded pistol to my head and blow my brains out as to ask me to keep out of this convention, to which I have been duly elected!”

The Louisianian’s face froze. One of the men in the aisle swore—none too swiftly. Douglass reasoned with them.

“What, gentlemen, would you gain by this exclusion? Would not the charge of cowardice, certain to be brought against you, prove more damaging than that of amalgamation? Would you not be branded all over the land as dastardly hypocrites, professing principles which you have no wish or intention of carrying out? As a matter of policy or expediency, you will be wise to let me in. Everybody knows that I have been fairly elected by the city of Rochester as a delegate. The fact has been broadly announced and commented upon all over the country. If I am not admitted, the public will ask, ‘Where is Douglass? Why is he not seen in the convention?’ And you would find that enquiry more difficult to answer than any charge brought against you for favoring political or social equality.” He paused. No one moved. Their faces remained hard and unconvinced. Douglass sighed. Then his face also hardened. He stood up.

“Well, ignoring the question of policy altogether, I am bound to go into that convention. Not to do so would contradict the principle and practice of my life.”

They left then. The charming gentleman from New Orleans did not bother to bow.

No more was said about the matter. Frederick Douglass was not excluded, but throughout the first morning session it was evident that he was to be ignored.

That afternoon a procession had been planned to start from Independence Hall. Flags and banners lined the way and crowds filled the streets. Douglass reached the starting point in good time. “Almost everybody on the ground whom I met seemed to be ashamed or afraid of me. I had been warned that I should not be allowed to walk through the city in the procession; fears had been expressed that my presence in it would so shock the prejudices of the people of Philadelphia as to cause the procession to be mobbed.”

The delegates were to walk two abreast. Douglass stood waiting, grimly determined to march alone. But shortly before the signal to start Theodore Tilton, young poet-editor of the New York Independent and the Brooklyn Worker, came hurrying in his direction. His straw-colored hair was rumpled and his face flushed.

“This way, Mr. Douglass! I’ve been looking for you.”

He grinned as he seized Douglass’ arm and with him pushed well up toward the head of the procession. There they took a place in the line. Tilton gayly ignored the sour faces around them.

“All set, captain, we’re ready to march!” he called.

Douglass tried to murmur something to express his appreciation, but the writer winked at him.

“Watch and see what happens!” he chuckled.

The band struck up and the line began to move. Someone on the sidewalk pointed to the sweeping mane of Douglass’ head and shouted, “Douglass! There’s Frederick Douglass!”

They began to cheer. The cheering was heard by those farther down the street, and heads craned forward. People leaned out of windows overhead to see. They waved their flags and shouted, hailing the delegates of the convention.

And Douglass was the most conspicuous figure in the line. The shout most often heard all along the way was:

“Douglass! Douglass! There is Frederick Douglass!”

After that there was no further question of ignoring Douglass at the convention. But any ambitions which he might have had for a political career cooled. He realized that a thorough-going “politician” might well have acceded to the delegates’ politely expressed wish “for the good of the party,” but he knew that he would never place the good of the party above the good of the people as a whole. After the adoption of the Fourteenth and Fifteen Amendments, both white and colored people urged him to move to one of the many districts of the South where there was a large colored vote and get himself a seat in Congress. No man in the country had a larger following. But the thought of going to live among people simply to gain their votes was repugnant to his self-respect. The idea did not square with his better judgment or sense of propriety.

When he was called to Washington to edit the New Era he began to turn the thought over in his mind. The problem of what to do with himself after the Anti-Slavery Society disbanded had been taken care of. He was in demand as a lecturer in colleges, on lyceum circuits and before literary societies. Where before he had considered himself well-off with his four-hundred-fifty- to five-hundred-dollar-a-year salary, he now received one hundred, one hundred fifty, or two hundred dollars for a single lecture. His children were grown. Lewis was a successful printer, Rosetta was married, and the youngest son was teaching school on the Eastern Shore of Maryland not far from St. Michaels.

Douglass had campaigned for Ulysses S. Grant because he was fond of, and believed in, Grant. There had been scarcely any contest. The people were sick to death of the constant wrangling which had been going on in Congress. President Johnson’s impeachment had fizzled like a bad firecracker. The kindest thing they said about Johnson was that he was weak. Everybody agreed that what was needed now was a strong hand. So by an overwhelming majority they chose a war hero.

Undoubtedly, Washington would be interesting, reasoned Douglass. It was the center of the hub, the Capital of all the States. He would also be nearer the great masses of his own people. But Anna Douglass—for the first time in thirty years neither overworked nor burdened with cares—was reluctant to leave Rochester.

Douglass provided for his family, but making money had never been his chief concern. Anna had always stretched dollars. The babies were all little together, so Anna could not go out and work. But while they were little, she often brought work home, sometimes without her husband’s knowledge. During the years when runaway slaves hid in their attic, Anna was always there at any hour of the day or night with food, clean clothing, warm blankets; and it was Anna who kept her husband’s shirts carefully laundered, his bag neatly packed. No one knew better than Douglass how Anna carried the countless, minute burdens of the days and nights. He loved her and depended upon her. But, like Anna Brown, she was the wife of a man who belonged to history. So now, though she would have preferred to relax under the big shade tree he had planted years before, enjoy the cool spaciousness of the home which they had made very comfortable, gossip a bit with her neighbors and relish the many friendly contacts she had made in Rochester, she nodded her head.

“If Washington is the place for you, of course we’ll go.” And she smiled at her husband, who was growing more handsome and more famous every day.

Douglass was in his prime. He cut an imposing figure. He knew it and was glad. For he regarded himself as ambassador of all the freedmen in America. He was always on guard—his speech, his manners, his appearance. Now that he could, he dressed meticulously, stopped off at New York on his way to Washington and ordered several suits, saw to it that he was well supplied with stiff white shirts. He intended that when he walked down Pennsylvania Avenue, across Lafayette Square, or through the Capital grounds, men would ask, “Who is he? What embassy is he from?” Sooner or later they would learn that he was “Frederick Douglass, ex-slave!”

Yes, he was proud. And this same naïve pride almost tripped him.

Since the paper needed him at once, it was decided Douglass would go on ahead, find a house, and later they would move their things and Anna would follow him.

He plunged into his work and almost immediately into difficulties. The New Era was not his own paper. It was the national organ of the Colored National Labor Union, and Douglass soon found he was not in step with the union leaders. The only one he knew personally was George Downing of Rhode Island. Even Downing seemed to have developed strange, new ideas.

James H. Morris was an astute and courageous reconstruction leader of North Carolina who saw politics and labor in clear alliance.

“What the South needs is a thorough reconstruction of its classes,” he argued, “and that’s a long way from being a sharp division of white and black.”

“With the ballot the Negro has full citizenship. He can make his way.” Douglass did not grasp the significance of organized labor.

“The unions have been shutting out the black man’s labor all these years.”

“White workers had to learn.”

It must be remembered that by adoption Douglass was New England and Upper New York. Puritan individualism with all its good and bad qualities had sunk deep. He had himself fought for Irish cottiers and British labor, but could not at this time envision black and white workers uniting against a common enemy in the United States.

After a series of what he called “bewildering circumstances,” he purchased the paper and turned it over to Lewis and Frederic, his two printer sons. After a few years they discontinued its publication. The “misadventure” cost him from nine to ten thousand dollars.

Meanwhile, in another world—a world of international intrigue and power politics that took little account of Frederick Douglass—events were shaping themselves “according to plan.” United States expansionists waited until President Grant took office and renewed their efforts to strengthen our hand in the Caribbeans.

The islands of the Caribbean Sea were heavy with potential wealth. Fortunes lay in the rich, black soil; cheap labor was there in the poor, black peoples who had been brought from Africa to work the islands. The key was Santo Domingo—the old Saint Domingue at which Spain, France and Great Britain had clutched desperately.

Since Columbus first landed there December 6, 1492, the history of the island had been written in blood. On one side had been born the second republic in the Western Hemisphere, called Haiti. When U. S. Grant became President of the United States, Haiti had stood for sixty-six years—in spite of the fact that it was looked upon as an anomaly among nations. On the other side of the island was the weaker Santo Domingo. After declaring its independence in 1845, it had been annexed by Spain while the Civil War was keeping the United States busy. When this happened, the “Black Republic” of Haiti sought with more zeal than power to take the place of the United States as defender against aggression by a European power. Santo Domingo did manage to wrench herself from Spain in 1865, but she was far from secure. The need for military bases and coaling stations in the Caribbean was obvious to a President skilled in military tactics. Admirals and generals of many nations had looked with longing eyes on Haiti’s Môle St. Nicolas, finest harbor in the Western world. But the Haitians were in a position to hold their harbor, and meanwhile Santo Domingo’s Samoná Bay was not bad. So President Grant offered the “protection” of the powerful United States to a “weak and defenseless people, torn and rent by internal feuds and unable to maintain order at home or command respect abroad.”

But the ever-watchful Charles Sumner rose in the Senate, and for six hours his voice resounded through the chamber like the wrath of God. He set off a series of repercussions against this annexation which reverberated across the country.

Douglass, in the midst of his own perplexities, heard the echoes and defended President Grant. Men working with him, particularly labor men, stared at him in amazement.

“How can you, Douglass!” they exclaimed. “Don’t you see what this means? And how can you side against Sumner? He’s the most courageous friend the black man has in Congress!”

“I’m not against Charles Sumner. Our Senator sees this proposed annexation as a measure to extinguish a colored nation and therefore bitterly opposes it. But even a great and good man can be wrong.”

George Downing, his eyes on Douglass’ earnest, troubled face, thought to himself, How right you are!

Charles Sumner, lying on a couch in the library of his big house facing Lafayette Square, listened with closed eyes while Douglass gently remonstrated. His strength was ebbing. Every one of these supreme efforts drained him of life. Sumner was one of the few men of his day who saw that the Union could yet lose the war. He had been very close to Lincoln in the last days. He was trying to carry out the wishes of his beloved Commander in Chief. He listened to Douglass, who he knew also loved Lincoln, with a frown. He sat up impatiently, tossing aside the light shawl with a snort.

“You’re caught up in a rosy cloud, Douglass. The lovely song of emancipation still rings in your ears drowning all other sounds. You’re due for a rude awakening.” His large eyes darkened. “And I’m afraid it won’t be long in coming!”

It was several days later when Douglass, responding to an invitation from the White House, felt a chill of apprehension. The President greeted him with a blunt question.

“Now, what do you think of your friend, Sumner?” he asked bitterly.

“I think, Mr. President,” said Douglass, choosing his words carefully, “that Senator Sumner is an honest and a valiant statesman. In opposing the annexation of Santo Domingo he believes he is defending the cause of the colored race as he has always done.” Douglass saw the slow flush creeping above the President’s beard. He continued evenly. “But I also think that in this he is mistaken.”

“You do?” There was surprise in the voice.

“Yes, sir, I do. I see no more dishonor to Santo Domingo in making her a state of the American Union than in making Kansas, Nebraska, or any other territory such a state. It is giving to a part the strength of the whole.”

The President relaxed in his chair, a slight smile on his lips. Douglass leaned forward.

“What do you, Mr. President, think of Senator Sumner?”

President Grant’s answer was concise.

“I think he’s mad!”

The Commission which President Grant sent to the Caribbean was one of many. Secretary Seward himself had gone to Haiti in the winter of 1865. And in 1867 Seward had sent his son, then Assistant Secretary of State. But the appointment of Frederick Douglass on Grant’s Commission was a pretty gesture. A naval vessel manned by one hundred marines and five hundred sailors, with the Stars and Stripes floating in the breeze, steaming into Samoná Bay bringing Frederick Douglass and a “confidential reconnaissance commission” of investigation! A reporter from the New York World went along, and much was made of Douglass’ “cordial relations” with the other members and of the fact that he was given the seat of honor at the captain’s table. It was a delightful cruise.

After thirty-six hours in port, they were ready to leave with the report that the people were “unanimously” in favor of annexation by the United States. Douglass heard nothing of the insurrection going on in the hills, nor of the rival factions bidding for American support, nor of the dollars from New York.

In spite of the commission, however, Horace Greeley and Charles Sumner defeated the bill—a bitter disappointment to certain interests, but far from a knockout blow.

The “old settlers” of Rochester tendered a farewell reception to Frederick Douglass and his family when he took formal leave of the city which had been his home for thirty years. All the old-time Abolitionists who had weathered the long and bitter storm were invited. Gerrit Smith, shrunken and feeble, was there. Joy and sadness sat down together at that board. But everyone was proud of the dark man whom Rochester now acclaimed as her “most distinguished son.”

Gideon Pitts’s father, old Captain Peter Pitts, had been the first settler in the township of Richmond, so Gideon Pitts and his wife were among the sponsors of the affair.

“Those were trying days even in our quiet valley,” Pitts’s eyes twinkled. Douglass was trying to recall the grizzled face. “But we licked ’em!”

It was the chuckle that brought it all back—the house offering shelter from pursuers, his pounding on the door and the old man in his nightshirt and bare feet!

“Mr. Pitts!” He seized his hand. “Of course, it’s Mr. Pitts!” He turned to his wife, “My dear, these are the folks who took me in that night on Ridge Road. You remember?”

“Of course, I remember.” Anna smiled. “I’ve always intended to ride out some afternoon and thank you, but—” She made a little rueful gesture, and she and Mrs. Pitts began to chat. They spoke of their children, and Douglass remembered something else.

“You had a little girl—How is she?”

The father laughed proudly. “My little girl’s quite a young lady now. She’s one that knows her own mind, too—belongs to Miss Anthony’s voting society. She says that’s the next thing—votes for women!”

Douglass nodded his head. “She’s right. We’re hoping the next amendment will make women citizens. Remember me to her, won’t you?”

“We sure will, Mr. Douglass!”

Then they were gone and Douglass said, “Good sound Americans, Anna—people of the land.”

And Anna said a little wistfully, “We’ll miss them.” Deep in her heart, Anna was afraid of Washington.

The house Douglass had taken at 316 A Street, N.E., was not ready, but he wanted Anna close by to supervise repairs and redecorations. They took Lewis with them, leaving Rosetta and her husband in the Rochester home until everything was moved.

Douglass planned to send his twelve bound volumes of the North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper, covering the period from 1848 to 1860, to Harvard University Library. The curator had requested them for Harvard’s historical files. But first he had to dash off to New Orleans to preside over the Southern States Convention.

P. B. S. Pinchback, Lieutenant-Governor of Louisiana, had invited Douglass to be his guest at the Governor’s Mansion. Indistinguishable from a white man, Pinchback had been educated in the North and had served as a captain in the Union Army. In appearance and actions he was an educated, well-to-do, genial Louisianian—intelligent and capable, but he was a practical politician and he played the politician’s game. He might have left New Orleans, gone to France as so many of them did, or even to some other section of the country. He might easily have shrugged off the harness of the cordon bleu, but New Orleans was in his blood. He lived always on the sharp edge, dangerously, while around him swirled a colorful and kaleidoscopic drama. He was by no means a charlatan.

It was April when Douglass came to New Orleans. He was greeted most cordially. “I shall show you my New Orleans and you will not want to leave,” Pinchback promised.

And Douglass was captivated by New Orleans—captivated and blinded. Camellias were in bloom, their loveliness reflected in stagnant waters. Soft, trailing beauty of mosses on damp walls in which stood high, heavy gates. The streets were filled with multicolored throngs—whites and blacks and all the colors in between, old women with piercing bright eyes under flaming tignons, hawkers crying out their wares, extending great trays piled high with figs, brown cakes and steaming jars—the liquid French accents—the smells!

They stepped over the carcass of a dog, which had evidently been floating in the street gutter for some time. “This is the old section,” Pinchback explained. “When we cross Canal Street, you’ll think you’re in New York.”

But there was nothing in New York like any part of New Orleans. The celebrated visitor found himself in gardens where fountains played and tiny, golden birds sipped honeysuckle, where flowering oleanders grew in huge jars and lovely ladies with sparkling eyes trailed black lace.

Into the Governor’s courtyard, with its glistening flagstones, came men for a talk with the great Douglass: Antoine Dubuclet, State Treasurer, a quiet, dark man, who had lived many years in Paris; tall and cultured P. G. Deslone, Secretary of State; Paul Trevigne, who published the New Orleans Tribune.

Trevigne was not on the best of terms with the Lieutenant-Governor. He bowed stiffly from the waist and hoped that the host would leave him and Douglass alone together. But Pinchback ordered coffee served beside the fountain, and over the thin, painted cup his eyes laughed.

“M. Trevigne does not approve of me,” he explained, turning to Douglass. “He thinks I should take life more vigorously—by the throat. I use other methods.”

Douglass, observing them, realized that here were two men of very different caliber. He marveled anew that Pinchback had been able to gain the confidence of the black people of New Orleans.

“Undoubtedly, sir,” Trevigne was saying frankly, “I understand better the more direct methods of our first Lieutenant-Governor.” He turned to Douglass. “His name was Oscar Dunn, and he was the only one of the seven colored men in the Senate two years ago who had been a slave. He was by far the most able.”

Pinchback had been in the Senate then. He studied the tray beside him and finally chose a heart-shaped pastry. He did not look up, but he said, “Oscar J. Dunn died—very suddenly.” His smile flashed. “I prefer to live.”

Trevigne frowned. He continued almost as if the Governor had not spoken.

“Oscar Dunn was responsible for opening public schools to blacks and poor whites alike.”

Douglass roused himself with a start. He looked at his watch.

“I’m sorry—but I’m going to be late. We must go. Let’s continue our visit on the way.” Trevigne welcomed the interruption.

“I’ll send you over in the carriage. And do not worry,” Pinchback lifted himself from the easy chair with languid grace. “The session will not begin on time.”

But the session of the convention had begun when Douglass reached the hall. The efficient secretary was calling the roll.

The convention was not going very well. Division in the Republican ranks grew deeper and broader every day. Douglass blamed Charles Sumner and Horace Greeley who “on account of their long and earnest advocacy of justice and liberty to the blacks, had powerful attractions for the newly-enfranchised class.” He ignored the persistent influence of the National Labor Union and its economic struggle. Douglass pointed to what the Republican party had done in Louisiana—to the legislators he had met. Six years later he was to hear all of them labeled “apes,” “buffoons,” and “clowns.” He was to see the schools Dunn had labored so hard to erect burned to the ground; the painstaking, neat accounts of Dubuclet blotted and falsified; the studied, skilful tacts of Pinchback labeled “mongrel trickery.”

There were those in New Orleans who saw it coming.

“Warmoth,” they warned him, “is the real master of Louisiana. And he represents capital, whose business it is to manipulate the labor vote—white and black.”

“The Republican party is the true workingmen’s party of the country!” thundered Douglass. And what he did was to steer the convention away from unionism to politics—not seeing their interrelation.

And so, as white labor in the North moved toward stronger and stronger union organization, it lost interest in, and vital touch with, the millions of laborers in the South. When the black night came, there was no help.

But all this was later. Douglass returned to Washington singing the praises of Louisiana—its rich beauties and the amazing progress the people were making. He congratulated himself that he had succeeded “in holding back the convention from a fatal political blunder.” His story was carried by the New York Herald—and pointedly omitted from the columns of the Tribune.

He found a letter awaiting him from Harvard: when was he sending on his newspaper files? There was some question of getting them catalogued before summer. Yes, he must attend to that—soon. And he laid the letter to one side.

On June 2, 1872, his house in Rochester burned to the ground. His papers were gone, and Douglass cursed the folly of his procrastination. Rosetta and her husband had managed to get out with a few personal possessions. Household furniture could be replaced, but Anna wept for a hundred precious mementos of the days gone by—little Annie’s cape, the children’s school books, the plum-colored wedding dress and Frederick’s first silk hat.

But Douglass thought only of his newspaper files and how he ought to have sent them to Harvard.

The gods were not yet finished with Frederick Douglass. It was as if they conspired to strip him of the last small vestige of his pride, as if to make sure that henceforth and forevermore he should “walk humble.”

“It is not without a feeling of humiliation that I must narrate my connection with the Freedmen’s Saving and Trust Company,” he wrote, when, later on, he felt he had to put down the whole unfortunate story.

The pathetically naïve account which follows is amazing on many counts. How could this little group of “church members” have expected to find their way within the intricate maze of national banking in the United States? From the start they were doomed to failure. Yet here stands an eternal monument to the fact that the newly emancipated men and women “put their money in banks,” were thrifty and frugal beyond our most rigid demands. For these banks were in the South among the masses of people who had just come out of slavery. The one Northern branch was in Philadelphia. Frederick Douglass did not see the reasons for the bank’s failure. He blamed himself and the handful of black men who tried to scale the barricades of big business, only to have themselves broken and left with a corpse on their hands.

This was an institution designed to furnish a place of security and profit for the hard earnings of the colored people, especially in the South. There was something missionary in its composition, and it dealt largely in exhortations as well as promises. The men connected with its management were generally church members, and reputed eminent for their piety. Their aim was to instil into the minds of the untutored Africans lessons of sobriety, wisdom, and economy, and to show them how to rise in the world. Like snowflakes in winter, circulars, tracts and other papers were, by this benevolent institution, scattered among the millions, and they were told to “look” to the Freedmen’s Bank and “live.” Branches were established in all the Southern States, and as a result, money to the amount of millions flowed into its vaults.

With the usual effect of sudden wealth, the managers felt like making a little display of their prosperity. They accordingly erected, on one of the most desirable and expensive sites in the national capital, one of the most costly and splendid buildings of the time, finished on the inside with black walnut and furnished with marble counters and all the modern improvements.... In passing it on the street I often peeped into its spacious windows, and looked down the row of its gentlemanly colored clerks, with their pens behind their ears, and felt my very eyes enriched. It was a sight I had never expected to see....

After settling myself down in Washington, I could and did occasionally attend the meetings of the Board of Trustees, and had the pleasure of listening to the rapid reports of the condition of the institution, which were generally of a most encouraging character.... At one time I had entrusted to its vaults about twelve thousand dollars. It seemed fitting to me to cast in my lot with my brother freedmen and to help build up an institution which represented their thrift and economy to so striking advantage; for the more millions accumulated there, I thought, the more consideration and respect would be shown to the colored people of the whole country.

About four months before this splendid institution was compelled to close its doors in the starved and deluded faces of its depositors, and while I was assured by its President and its actuary of its sound condition, I was solicited by some of the trustees to allow them to use my name in the board as a candidate for its presidency.

So I waked up one morning to find myself seated in a comfortable armchair, with gold spectacles on my nose, and to hear myself addressed as president of the Freedmen’s Bank. I could not help reflecting on the contrast between Frederick the slave boy, running about with only a tow linen shirt to cover him, and Frederick—President of a bank counting its assets by millions. I had heard of golden dreams, but such dreams had no comparison with this reality.

My term of service on this golden height covered only the brief space of three months, and was divided into two parts. At first I was quietly employed in an effort to find out the real condition of the bank and its numerous branches. This was no easy task. On paper, and from the representations of its management, its assets amounted to three millions of dollars, and its liabilities were about equal to its assets. With such a showing I was encouraged in the belief that by curtailing the expenses, and doing away with non-paying branches, we could be carried safely through the financial distress then upon the country. So confident was I of this, that, in order to meet what was said to be a temporary emergency, I loaned the bank ten thousand dollars of my own money, to be held by it until it could realize on a part of its abundant securities.[29]

One wonders how the trustees ever managed to pay back that loan before the final crash. But they did pay it.

Gradually I discovered that the bank had, through dishonest agents, sustained heavy losses in the South.... I was, six weeks after my election as president, convinced that the bank was no longer a safe custodian of the hard earnings of my confiding people.

Douglass’ next move probably made bad matters worse. He reported to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance that the federal assets of the bank were gone. A commission was appointed to take over the bank, and its doors were closed. Not wishing to take any advantage of the other depositors, Douglass left his money to be divided with the assets among the creditors of the bank.

In time—a long time—the larger part of the depositors received most of their money. But it was upon the head of the great Frederick Douglass that the wrath and the condemnation descended.