Let me confess, Sir, that, while at each stage I have felt this
tyranny most keenly, and never doubted that it ought to be arrested
by impeachment, my feelings have been most stirred by the outrage to
Hayti, which, besides being a wrong to the Black Republic, was an
insult to the colored race, not only abroad, but here at home. How a
Chief Magistrate with four millions of colored fellow-citizens could
have done this thing passes comprehension. Did he suppose it would not
be known? Did he imagine it could be hushed in official pigeonholes?
Or was he insensible to the true character of his own conduct? The
facts are indisputable. For more than two generations Hayti had been
independent, entitled under International Law to equality among
nations, and since Emancipation in our country commended to us as an
example of self-government, being the first in the history of the
African race and the promise of the future. And yet our President, in
his effort to secure that Naboth’s Vineyard on which he had set his
eyes, not content with maintaining the usurper Baez in power, occupying
the harbors of Dominica with war-ships, sent other war-ships, being
none other than our most powerful monitor, the Dictator, with the
frigate Severn as consort, and with yet other monitors in their train,
to strike at the independence of the Black Republic, and to menace it
with war. Do I err in any way, am I not entirely right, when I say
that here was unpardonable outrage to the African race? As one who for
years has stood by the side of this much-oppressed people, sympathizing
always in their woes and struggling for them, I felt the blow which the
President dealt, and it became the more intolerable from the heartless
attempts to defend it. Alas, that our President should be willing to
wield the giant strength of the Great Republic in trampling upon the
representative government of the African race! Alas, that he did not
see the infinite debt of friendship, kindness, and protection due to
that people, so that instead of monitors and war-ships, breathing
violence, he had sent a messenger of peace and good-will!
This outrage was followed by an incident in which the same sentiments
were revealed. Frederick Douglass, remarkable for his intelligence as
for his eloquence, and always agreeable in personal relations, whose
only offence is a skin not entirely Caucasian, was selected by the
President to accompany the Commissioners to San Domingo,--and yet on
his return, and almost within sight of the Executive Mansion, he was
repelled from the common table of the mail-steamer on the Potomac,
where his companions were already seated; and thus through him was the
African race insulted and their equal rights denied. But the President,
whose commission he had borne, neither did nor said anything to right
this wrong, and a few days later, when entertaining the Commissioners
at the Executive Mansion, actually forgot the colored orator whose
services he had sought.[155] But this indignity is in unison with the
rest. After insulting the Black Republic, it is easy to see how natural
it was to treat with insensibility the representative of the African
race.