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.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“_If slavery could not kill us, liberty won’t_”
Seneca Falls’ Union Woman’s Suffrage Society hated to lose one of its
most faithful and ardent members, but the manner of her leaving was
cause for much rejoicing. _A Civil Service position in Washington! My
goodness, what a break!_
“It’s not a break.” Miss Dean, secretary of the society, spoke
indignantly. “Helen Pitts has passed the examination, and she is taking
her well-earned place in the ranks of government workers.”
“Sure,” Matilda Hooker teased, “but isn’t Susan B. Anthony wearing
herself out all over the place just so women can have such rights? This
is a significant step, and I say we women in Seneca can be proud of
Helen Pitts.”
“Hear! Hear!” they said. Then Helen Pitts came in, her face flushed,
and after a little excited chatter the meeting was called to order.
It was true that Helen had taken the fall Civil Service examination by
way of a “declaration of independence.” When she presented herself at
the post-office they had eyed her with disapproval.
“What’s the schoolmarm here for?” they asked. And Sid Green remarked
sourly that he’d heard tell she was one of those “advanced women.” His
wife rebuked him sharply.
“Miss Pitts is one of the nicest and most ladylike teachers we’ve ever
had. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Sid Green!”
But Sid hadn’t taken it back. The School Board hadn’t liked their
teacher’s marching in the suffrage parade last fall--and Sid knew it,
no matter what his wife said. Anyhow, _he_ wore the pants in _his_
house. He hitched them up now with a jerk and went outside.
There was no question about the teacher’s popularity with her pupils.
The morning she mailed her resignation (to take effect at the end
of the month) she decided not to tell the children until after the
Christmas party. That wasn’t going to be easy.
The teacher’s mind was jerked back to the present by hearing her name.
“I move that Helen Pitts be our delegate,” Lucy Payne said.
Helen blinked her eyes.
“I second the motion.” Mrs. Huggins was nodding her head emphatically.
Helen nudged the girl next to her and whispered, “I didn’t hear--What’s
going on?”
“Delegates to the National Convention,” came the low answer.
“But--”
“Sh-sh! You’re on your way to fame and fortune.” The girl grinned as
the chairman rapped for order. She was ready to put the motion.
“It has been moved and seconded that Miss Helen Pitts be our delegate
in Washington next month. All those in favor say ‘Aye’.”
The “Ayes” had it, and everybody beamed at Helen.
“Get up! You’re supposed to thank them!” Her friend nudged her.
It was silly to be nervous--they were all her friends. But the hazel
eyes were dangerously bright and the neat, folded kerchief at her
throat fluttered.
“Ladies, you do me great honor,” she said. “I--I’ll try to be a good
representative.” She swallowed and then spoke resolutely. “We know why
we want votes for women--not for any of the silly reasons some men say.
We must be very sure and as courageous as our leaders. They are taking
the fight right to the Capital, and I promise you we’ll fling it into
the very teeth of Congress, disturbing their peaceful complacency until
they will be forced to action.”
They did not have enough funds in the treasury to send a delegate from
Seneca Falls. Helen would go down to Washington a week before her job
started.
Helen Pitts spent most of her Christmas holiday at home packing and
harking to parental admonitions. Gideon Pitts regarded his daughter
both with pride and apprehension. Schoolteaching had been a nice, quiet
occupation, but he knew something about the “wiles” and “pitfalls” of
big cities. He thought he ought to go down with her and see that she
found a respectable place to live in. His wife held him back.
“That’s silly, Pa. Helen’s got plenty mother wit, for all she’s so
small and frail-looking.” Her mother sighed. “I was hoping she’d be
settling near home--that she might accept Brad.”
Aunt Julia was a little more direct.
“I’d get this nonsense out of Helen’s head if I was her mother.” She
spoke firmly. “Old maids soon fade, and all these new-fangled ideas
ain’t a-gonna keep her warm winter nights.”
“Helen’s no old maid yet,” defended her mother.
“’Pears like to me she’ll be thirty come this spring. And if that ain’t
an old maid my mind’s failing me,” was the acid comment.
In due time Helen Pitts took her seat in the Fourth National Suffrage
Convention, meeting in Washington the first week in January, 1874.
The air crackled with excitement. Now that the Fourteenth Amendment
had gone to some length to define “citizenship” within the United
States, “manhood suffrage” was being substituted by the politicians
for the recent vanguard cry “universal suffrage.” Susan B. Anthony was
calling upon the women of America to have their say. The leaders of
the movement were ridiculed, mocked and libeled, but they had come to
Washington in full armor.
Her face aglow, eyes sparkling with indignation, Miss Anthony told
the opening session that a petition against woman’s suffrage had been
presented in the Senate by a Mr. Edmunds. Mrs. General Sherman, Mrs.
Admiral Dahlgren and other Washington wives had signed it.
“These are the women,” she said, “who never knew a want, whose children
are well fed and warmly clad. Yet they would deny these same comforts
to other women even though they are earned by the toil of their hands.
Such women are traitors not only to their best instincts, but to all
mothers of men!”
Helen tried to applaud louder than anybody else. She would have liked
to stand and tell them that her home was in Rochester, that she had
been one of the youngest members of Susan B. Anthony’s own club. But
the women did not spend their time exchanging compliments. Helen voted
for or against resolution after resolution; she was placed on one
committee.
Lincoln Hall was packed for the big open session on Saturday afternoon.
Many came just to hear the big speakers, but the women were happy
because they were creating a real stir in Washington. They devoutly
hoped it would be felt throughout the country.
A shiver of anticipation went through the crowd at the appearance of
Robert Ingersoll.
“He’s like a Greek god,” a woman seated beside Helen moaned. “Any man
as handsome as that is bound to be wicked!”
An outstanding editor had written at great length on how laws in the
United States favored women. Word by word and line by line Ingersoll,
the lawyer, cut the ground from underneath the editor’s feet. Skilfully
he analyzed the many laws upon the statute books which bound women and
their children to the petty whims and humors of men.
“But these laws will not change until _you_ change them,” he told
them. “Justice and freedom do not rain like manna from heaven upon
outstretched hands. We men will not _give_ you the ballot. You must
_take_ it!”
The secretaries rustled papers nervously. The chairman glanced at her
watch. There was a hitch in the program, but the audience did not mind
a little breathing spell. The side door up front opened, and Frederick
Douglass entered as quietly as possible. He looked like a huge bear. He
was covered with snow which clung even to his beard and hair. With some
assistance he hurriedly removed this overcoat and rubbers. After wiping
his face and hair with his big handkerchief, he mounted the steps to
the platform.
Instantly the crowd burst into applause which continued while Susan
B. Anthony took his hand and Mr. Ingersoll, leaning forward in his
seat, greeted him warmly. When Douglass sat down facing the audience
his broad shoulders sagged a little, and Helen fancied he closed his
eyes for a moment as he rested his hands on his knees. She had not
heard him since the close of the war. The touch of gray in his hair
heightened his air of distinction, but she had not before noticed how
his cheekbones showed above the beard. Perhaps his face was thinner.
To this convention Douglass was the very symbol of their strivings. He
was one of the first to see that woman’s suffrage and Negro citizenship
were the same fight. He had appeared with Susan B. Anthony in her early
meetings at Syracuse and Rochester. Now slavery was abolished and here
he was still standing at her side.
Few in the big hall heard the effort in Frederick Douglass’ voice that
afternoon. They heard his words. But behind him Robert Ingersoll’s
mouth tightened and a little frown came on his face. _What can I do to
help?_ he wondered.
Afterward, Helen Pitts tried to speak to Mr. Douglass. He would not
remember her, but it would be something to write to the folks at home.
But the press of the crowd was too great, and her committee was called
for a short caucus.
In front of the hall some time later she was surprised to see him just
leaving the building. With him was Mr. Ingersoll. Helen was struck
again by the somber shadows in Douglass’ face, but Ingersoll was
smiling, his face animated.
“Nonsense, Douglass!” she heard Ingersoll say. “What you’ve needed for
a long time is a good lawyer.” He laughed buoyantly. “Well, here he is!”
Douglass’ voice was heavy.
“But, Mr. Ingersoll, I can’t--”
Ingersoll had stepped to the curb and, lifting his cane, was hailing a
passing cab.
“But you can. Come along, Douglass! First, we eat. Then I shall tell
you something about banking. What a spot for _you_ to be in!”
They climbed into the cab, and it rolled away through the gathering
dusk. Helen walked to her room, wondering what on earth they had been
talking about.
The next time Helen Pitts heard Douglass speak was on the occasion
of the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Lincoln Park. Negroes
throughout the United States had raised the money for this monument to
Lincoln; and on a spring day, when once more the lilacs were in bloom,
they called together the great ones of the country to pause and think.
Helen had never before witnessed such an array of dignitaries--the
President of the United States, his Cabinet, judges of the Supreme
Court, members of the Senate and House of Representatives.
“Few facts could better illustrate the vast and wonderful change which
has taken place in our condition as a people,” Douglass, the ex-slave,
told the hushed crowd, “than our assembling here today.... It is the
first time that, in this form and manner, we have sought to do honor
to an American great man, however deserving and illustrious. I commend
the fact to notice. Let it be told in every part of the Republic. Let
men of all parties and opinions hear it. Let those who despise us,
not less than those who respect us, know it and that now and here, in
the spirit of liberty, loyalty and gratitude, we unite in this act of
reverent homage. Let it be known everywhere, and by everybody who takes
an interest in human progress and in the amelioration of the condition
of mankind, that ... we, the colored people, newly emancipated and
rejoicing in our blood-bought freedom, near the close of the first
century in the life of this Republic, have now and here unveiled, set
apart, and dedicated a monument of enduring granite and bronze, in
every line, feature, and figure of which men may read ... something of
the exalted character and great works of Abraham Lincoln, the first
martyr-President of the United States.”
Douglass spoke as one who loved and mourned a friend. And when the last
word was said, men turned and walked away in silence.
“He is the noblest of them all!” Helen Pitts said to herself.
* * * * *
Douglass sat that night at home in his study, his head bowed in his
hands. Lincoln had been struck down, his face turned toward the future;
he had been struck down as he walked in the road. And they had not
carried on. The nation had failed Lincoln and new chaos was upon them.
“_You are caught up in a rosy cloud, Douglass._”
He had been with the Senator from Massachusetts when he died. With his
last breath Charles Sumner had pleaded for the Civil Rights Bill--his
bill. He had died fighting for it.
Douglass had pinned his faith on the ballot. He shuddered. Armed men
were now riding through the night, marking their course by whipping,
shooting, maiming and mutilating men, women and children. They were
entering houses by force, shooting the inmates as they fled, destroying
lives and property. All because the blacks were trying to use their
ballot.
The summer saw a hesitating, weak old man pleading with Congress for
assistance. Congress refused, and so the soldier had no other recourse
but to call out troops to enforce the Reconstruction laws. Three times
the soldiers restored to power candidates who had been ousted from
office by force and fraudulent elections. In retaliation, the planters
in Louisiana killed Negroes and whites in cold blood. Pitched battles
raged in the streets of New Orleans.
The lowest ebb of degradation was reached with the election of 1876.
School histories touch that month lightly and move quickly on. The deal
was made, and Rutherford B. Hayes became President of the United States.
The calm was ominous. From several sections of the dead-still South
groups of grim-faced men journeyed to Washington and gathered at
Frederick Douglass’ house.
“They say he will remove the soldiers. That means the end of everything
for us. Only the Federal troops have held them back!”
“Is there nothing? Nothing you can cling to?” Douglass sought for one
hope.
“There might have been had we cemented ties with Northern labor. They
are just as intent on crushing the white worker.” The black man’s eyes
on Douglass’ face accused him. He had been a delegate to the Louisiana
convention. And that was where the Negro labor union died!
“How bitter knowledge is that comes too late!” Douglass acknowledged
his mistake with these words. The man from South Carolina spoke.
“They’ll say we lost the ballot because we did not know how to use it.”
“It is a lie--we could not do the things we knew to do!”
“The measures you have passed? Reforms?” Douglass searched the drawn
faces.
“They’ll all be swept away--”
“Like so much trash!”
“Go to the new President,” they urged. “You cannot be accused of
seeking favors. Go and tell him the truth. Plead with him to leave us
this protection a little longer.”
“A little longer, they ask a little more time, Mr. Hayes.” Douglass was
in the White House, begging understanding for his people’s need. He
leaned forward, trying to read the face of the man who held so much of
their destiny in his hands.
President Hayes spoke calmly.
“You are excited, Douglass. You have fought a good fight--and your case
is won. There is no cause for further alarm. Your people are free. Now
we must work for the prosperity of all the South. How can the Negro be
deprived of his political or civil rights? The Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments are part of the Constitution. Douglass, do you lose faith in
your government?”
Douglass rose slowly to his feet. There was logic and reason in the
President’s words.
“I covet the best for my country--the true grandeur of justice for
all,” he said. “Humbly I do pray that this United States will not lose
so great a prize.”
He bowed and took his leave.
All restrictions were lifted from the South. Little by little, on one
pretext or another, blacks and poor whites were disfranchised; and the
North covered the ugliness with gossamer robes of nostalgic romance.
The Black Codes were invoked; homeless men and women were picked up for
vagrancy, chain gangs formed, and the long, long night set in.
Not all at once, of course. And that afternoon as Douglass walked away
through the White House grounds, he could not be sure. The air was
clean and sweet after a cleansing shower, and he decided to walk.
He swung along, hardly heeding his direction. Then he saw that he was
on I Street, N.W., and, as he approached a certain building, his steps
slowed. The Haitians had opened their Legation with such pomp and
pride! At last the valiant little Republic had been recognized, and
President Lincoln had invited them to send their ambassador. He had
come, a quiet, cultured gentleman who spoke English and French with
equal charm and grace. But almost immediately the Haitian Legation on
I Street had closed, and Ernest Roumain moved to New York City. He had
said very little, but everybody knew that Washington would not tolerate
the Legation of Haiti.
Douglass sighed. He hesitated a moment. Then his face brightened. He
would go and see Miss Amelia. Yes, it would do him good to talk to Miss
Amelia a little while.
* * * * *
Over on Pennsylvania Avenue at Fifteenth Street government clerks and
secretaries were leaving the Treasury Building. They glanced up at the
clearing skies and set off in their several directions. Helen Pitts
paused a moment at the top of the steps. She and Elsie Baker usually
walked home together; but Elsie did not come, so Helen started walking
rather slowly down the street.
It was nice to stroll along like this after the busy day. Her work had
settled into a regular routine. Life in the civil service was by no
means dull. There was always the possibility of being let in on some
“important secret.” Anything could and often did happen in Washington.
And now there was not even the slightest chance of her getting
homesick. Her first lodging place had been respectable enough, but
she used to look forward to times when she could go home. Now she was
thinking about having her mother come down and spend a week with her.
She’d love it.
Her good luck had come on a particularly cold night when Elsie, whom
she knew then only as the Senior Clerk, had spoken to her.
“You have an awfully long ways to go, don’t you, Miss Pitts?”
“Yes, it is far. But it’s only in weather like this that I really mind
it.”
Mrs. Baker--she was a war widow--regarded her for a few minutes and
then murmured, “I wonder!”
“You wonder what?” asked Helen pleasantly.
“I was just wondering if _maybe_ Miss Amelia wouldn’t let you have
Jessie Payne’s room.”
“And why should I have Jessie Payne’s room? I don’t know the lady.”
The Senior Clerk laughed.
“You probably won’t because she went home Christmas to be married. And
her room _is_ empty.”
“Is it a nice room?”
“Miss Amelia’s house is special.” Elsie smiled. “All of us have been
there for ages. John and I both lived there when we--Naturally,
afterward, when I came back I went straight to Miss Amelia. But she
doesn’t take new people. She isn’t able to get about much any more. Mr.
Haley’s really the boss, and she doesn’t have to do anything. So you
see, it isn’t a lodging house at all. You’d love it.”
“It sounds wonderful!”
“Why not come home with me tonight for supper? We could sound Miss
Amelia out.”
They sat around the big table in the dining room--eight of them when
a chair was placed for Helen--with the nicest little blue-eyed lady
smiling at them from behind a tall teapot. Helen knew that the call,
stoop-shouldered Mr. Haley was city editor of one of the daily papers.
He didn’t talk much, but he was a pleasant host.
“Where are you from, Miss Pitts?”
Her reply brought Miss Amelia’s full attention.
“Rochester!” Miss Amelia exclaimed. “We have a very distinguished
friend who lives--or rather used to live--in Rochester. He’s in
Washington now. You’ve heard of Frederick Douglass?” She leaned
forward, her eyes bright.
“Oh, yes, ma’am.” Helen’s enthusiasm was quite genuine. “Everybody in
Rochester knows Frederick Douglass.”
The little lady sat back, a smile on her face.
“I knew him when he was a boy.”
Jack Haley chuckled. He turned to Helen, and his tired eyes smiled.
“Hold on to your hat, Miss Pitts. You’re going to hear a story.”
Everybody laughed. They all knew Miss Amelia’s favorite story.
“You’ll get the room!” whispered Elsie.
She was right, of course. The next day Helen Pitts moved into Jessie
Payne’s room.
* * * * *
They met just outside the gate. He saw that the lady was about to turn
in and so, lifting his hat, he stepped back. She smiled and said, “How
do you do, Mr. Douglass?”
“Good evening, ma’am.” She walked up the path, and he cursed his
inability to remember names. He was sure her face was familiar. It was
dusk. When he saw her inside surely he would remember. At the door she
turned.
“Stop cudgeling your brains,” she said. “I’ve never been introduced to
you.”
“Then it’s not really my fault if I don’t know your name.” He gave a
sigh of relief.
They both laughed then, and Miss Amelia was calling, “Come in! Come in,
both of you! Well, so at last you two have met again.”
“Why no, Miss Amelia, the lady doesn’t--”
“We haven’t been introduced,” Helen interrupted.
“Tck! Tck! You told me that--”
“But that was years ago, Miss Amelia.”
Douglass was holding both Miss Amelia’s hands in his.
“Please, ladies! This isn’t fair. Now, please, won’t you present me?”
Amelia was severe.
“After the length of time you’ve stayed away, Fred, I shouldn’t.”
Douglass bowed gravely when at last she complied with his request,
his eyes still somewhat puzzled. Then Helen said, “I’m Gideon Pitts’s
daughter, from Rochester.”
* * * * *
A few weeks later--to the horror of Washington--President Hayes
appointed Frederick Douglass United States Marshal of the District of
Columbia. It might almost seem that, having recalled the troops from
the South, the President went out of his way to administer a rebuke
where it would hurt most.
Fear was expressed that Douglass would pack the courts and jury-boxes
with Negroes. Of even more concern was the time-honored custom that
the Marshal presented all guests to the President at state functions!
Immediately efforts were made by members of the bar to defeat Douglass’
confirmation for office. But a one-time slaveholder, Columbus
Alexander, of an old and wealthy Washington family, joined with George
Hill, influential Republican, in presenting the necessary bond; and
when the confirmation came up before the Senate the gentleman from
New York, Senator Roscoe Conkling, won them over with a masterly and
eloquent address on “Manhood.”
So Frederick Douglass in “white kid gloves, sparrow-tailed coat,
patent-leather boots and alabaster cravat” was at the President’s side
at the next White House reception. Nothing could be done now but wait
for some overt act on his part to justify his removal. The opposition
thought they had him a couple of months after he took office.
The Marshal had been invited to Baltimore to deliver a lecture in
Douglass Hall--named in his honor and used for community educational
purposes. He spoke on “Our National Capital.” Everybody seemed to enjoy
a pleasant evening. But the next morning Douglass awoke to find that he
was being quoted and attacked by the press. Within a few days some of
the newspapers had worked themselves into a frenzy, and committees were
appointed to procure names to a petition demanding his removal from
office.
It is said that the President laughed about the matter, and it is
certain that after a statement made by Douglass was printed in the
_Washington Evening Star_ the hostility kindled against him vanished as
quickly as it had come.
Douglass could be very witty, and he had made some humorous reflections
on the great city. “But,” he wrote the editor, “it is the easiest thing
in the world, as you know, sir, to pervert the meaning and give a
one-sided impression of a whole speech.... I am not such a fool as to
decry a city in which I have invested my money and made my permanent
residence.”
As a matter of fact, Douglass had spoken in the most glowing terms of
“our national center.... Elsewhere we may belong to individual States,
but here we belong to the whole United States....”
Douglass did love Washington. With his children and their families
he occupied the double house at 316 and 318 A Street, N.E. But he
wanted to buy some place on the outskirts of the city where Anna could
have peace and rest. His house was only a few minutes’ walk from the
Capitol, and visitors were always knocking on their door. Besides,
Anna missed her trees and flowers. She shrank from what she termed the
“frivolities” of Washington and would seldom go anywhere with him. When
he spoke of moving “out into the country” he saw her face brighten. He
began looking for a place.
Marshal Douglass was on hand to welcome President James A. Garfield to
the White House. According to long-established usage, the United States
Marshal had the honor of escorting both the outgoing and the incoming
presidents from the imposing ceremonies in the Senate Chamber to the
east front of the Capitol where, on a platform erected for the purpose,
the presidential oath was administered to the President-elect.
Hopes throughout the country ran high at the time of Garfield’s
inauguration. As Senator from Ohio, Garfield had been a reform advocate
for several years.
There was no question about the serious state of affairs. “Under the
guise of meekly accepting the results and decisions of war,” Douglass
noted, “Southern states were coming back to Congress with the pride of
conquerors rather than with any trace of repentant humility. It was not
the South, but loyal Union men, who had been at fault.... The object
which through violence and bloodshed they had accomplished in the
several states, they were already aiming to accomplish in the United
States by address and political strategy.”
In Douglass’ mind was lodged a vivid and unpleasant memory which he
thought of as “Senator Garfield’s retreat.”
In a speech on the floor the Ohio Senator had used the phrase “perjured
traitors,” describing men who had been trained by the government, were
sworn to support and defend its Constitution, and then had taken to
the battlefield and fought to destroy it. One Randolph Tucker rose
to resent the phrase. “The only defense Mr. Garfield made to this
brazen insolence,” Douglass remembered, “was that he did not make the
dictionary. This was perhaps the soft answer that turneth away wrath,
but it is not the answer Charles Sumner, Benjamin Wade or Owen Lovejoy
would have given. None of these men would have in such a case sheltered
himself behind a dictionary.”
Yet no one in the country felt the shock of President Garfield’s
assassination more deeply than Douglass. Not only had a good man been
cruelly slain in the morning of his highest usefulness, but his sudden
death came as a killing blow to Douglass’ newly awakened hopes for
further recognition of his people.
Only a few weeks before, Garfield had asked Douglass to the White House
for a talk.[30] The President said he had wondered why his Republican
predecessors had never sent a colored man as minister or ambassador
to a white nation: He planned to depart from this usage. Did Douglass
think one of his race would be acceptable in the capitals of Europe?
Douglass told President Garfield to take the step. Other nations did
not share the American prejudice. Best of all, it would give the
colored citizen new spirit. It would be a sign that the government was
in earnest when it clothed him with American citizenship.
Again the country was in gloom. People in their sorrow came together;
legislators and earnest men and women shook their heads and marveled at
the struggles which seemed necessary for welding a nation of free men.
The people as a whole were finding that freedom is a hard-bought thing.
Douglass rose before a huge audience in New York City. He was older. He
had suffered because of failure to see, he had stumbled a little on the
way--but he had never left the road. The lines in his face were lines
of strength, the fire in his eyes was the light of knowledge, the sweet
song of emancipation no longer filled his ears to the exclusion of
everything else. He saw the scarred and blackened stumps that blocked
his path, he saw the rocks and muddy pitfalls on the way, he knew that
there were hidden snipers further up the road, but he went on--walking
with dignity. The crowd listening to him was very still.
“How stands the case with the recently emancipated millions of colored
people in our country?” he began. “By law, by the Constitution of the
United States, slavery has no existence in our country. The legal form
has been abolished. By law and the Constitution the Negro is a man and
a citizen, and has all the rights and liberties guaranteed to any other
variety of the human family residing in the United States.”
Men who had recently come to these shores from other lands heard him.
New York--melting pot of the world! They had come from Italy and
Germany, from Poland and Ireland and Russia to the country of freedom.
“It is a great thing to have the supreme law of the land on the side
of right and liberty,” he said. “Only,” he went on, “they gave the
freedmen the machinery of liberty, but denied them the steam with
which to put it in motion. They gave them the uniforms of soldiers but
no arms; they called them citizens and left them subjects; they called
them free and almost left them slaves. They did not deprive the old
master-class of the power of life and death. Today the masters cannot
sell them, but they retain the power to starve them to death!
“Greatness,” the black orator reminded the citizens of New York, “does
not come to any people on flowery beds of ease. We must fight to win
the prize. No people to whom liberty is given can hold it as firmly or
wear it as grandly as those who wrench their liberty from the iron hand
of the tyrant.”
He could take the cheers of the crowd with a quiet smile. He knew that
some of them would remember and in their own way would act.
Anna joined her husband on the New York trip. And for a short while
they relived the time more than forty years before, when, after the
anxious days and nights, they were first free together. This trip,
their youngest son Charles was marrying Laura Haley, whose home was in
New York.
They had banks of flowers, organ music, smart ushers and lovely
bridesmaids. The marriage of Charles, son of Frederick Douglass, was
a very different affair from that wedding so long ago when Frederick,
fugitive from slavery, took Anna Murray, freewoman, to be his wife. As
the bride all in white came floating down the aisle, Douglass turned
and smiled into Anna’s clear, good eyes.
* * * * *
With his appointment as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia,
Douglass knew that he could safely buy the house he coveted. It was for
sale, but until now he had only gazed with longing. It was on Anacostia
Heights overlooking Washington across the Potomac--a fine old house
with spacious grounds, servants’ quarters and stables. As soon as he
took office, and without saying anything to Anna, he set about buying
the property.
For many reasons Douglass’ present appointment was far more desirable
than the post of Marshal. The Recorder’s job was a local office; though
held at the pleasure of the President, it was in no sense a federal or
political post.
Douglass felt freer and more on his own. At that time the salary was
not fixed. The office was supported solely by fees paid for work done
by its employees. Since every transfer of property, every deed of
trust and every mortgage had to be recorded, the income was at times
larger than that of any office of the national government except that
of the President. Also, Douglass had that winter brought out the third
of his autobiographies, _The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_.
June promised to be a hot month, and everybody was talking about
getting away from the city. Anna thought her husband seemed
increasingly busy and preoccupied.
“Come along, dear,” he said one Sunday. “We’re going for a drive.”
“Me too, Grandma!” Their grandchild, Rosetta’s little girl, came
running up.
“Not this time, honey,” Douglass said. “Grandpa’ll take you riding, but
not right now.” And he added for Anna’s ears alone, “Today I only want
your grandmother.”
He was in a talkative mood that afternoon.
“Remember the morning the boat pulled into New Bedford?” he asked as
they crossed the bridge over the Potomac River. “Remember the big house
sitting up on the hill?”
He turned in the buggy seat and looked at her. And in that moment he
was no longer the great Frederick Douglass--he was the slender, eager
boy, just escaped from slavery, leaning on the rail of the boat,
devouring with his young eyes every detail of their wonderful free
home. The big white house far up on the hill had caught their eyes.
“_Look! Some day we’ll have a house like that! Look, Anna!_”
So now, when he asked, “Do you remember?” she only nodded her head. The
smart little buggy was rolling along on land once more.
“Now we’re in Anacostia,” he said. “Close your eyes and keep them
closed till I say!” She heard him chuckle like a boy, and then he said,
“Now--Look!” He pointed with his whip.
It was the big white house high on a hill!
“There’s our house, Anna, the house I promised you!”
She could only stare. Then the meaning of his words made her gasp.
“Frederick! You don’t really mean--You haven’t--?”
He laughed as she had not heard him laugh in a long time. They were
winding up the hill now--toward the house.
That afternoon they planned and dreamed. The owners had let the house
run down, but it would be perfect.
“We’ll try to have it ready in time to escape the August heat. This is
why I’ve been deaf to your talk about a vacation.”
The afternoon almost exhausted Anna.
“Mamma’s all fagged out,” Rosetta told her father the next day.
June was very hot, and Douglass began to worry about his wife.
“Perhaps you’d better go away for a few days.” She shook her head.
“The house will be ready soon. When we get on our hill--” Her eyes were
happy with anticipation.
When the doctor ordered her to bed, she was planning the moving.
“I’ll just take it easy for a few days--then we’ll start packing,” she
said.
Anna Murray Douglass died on August 4th, 1882.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
_Indian summer and a fair harvest_
They moved him out to the house in November.
“It must be settled before winter,” Rosetta said, and his sons agreed.
“Pipes will freeze up unless someone is in the house.”
So they packed the furniture--the piano--his books. It was a
twelve-room house. They looked at each other in dismay. What were his
plans? What to put in all those rooms?
“Buy what is needed.” His voice was tired. He went into his room,
closing the door softly behind him.
Meanwhile, Robert Ingersoll had moved to Washington. In spite of the
many demands of his meteoric career he sought out Douglass, invited him
to his home, sent him books.
“She was so happy, Douglass.” Ingersoll laid his hand on the older
man’s arm. “Think of that. I wish--” He stopped and for a moment a
shadow crossed his face. He was thinking of his brother. Then he said
softly, “Blessed is the man who knows that through his own living he
has brought some happiness into life.”
Gradually Douglass’ work reclaimed him. Nothing had been neglected at
the office. Helen Pitts was now a Senior Clerk there. Everyone had
cooperated in seeing that the work went on. His unfailing courtesy had
endeared him to the whole staff.
He stopped in several times during winter for tea with Miss Amelia. The
little old lady, grown very frail, kept a special biscuit “put by” for
him. Jack Haley came in once and joined them. He kept Douglass talking
quite late, for even after all these years Jack recalled the first long
nights of his own loneliness.
Then the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875
unconstitutional, and Frederick Douglass leaped into the fray.
He called a protest mass meeting at Lincoln Hall.
“If it is a bill for social equality,” Douglass said, opening the
meeting, “so is the Declaration of Independence, which declares that
all men have equal rights; so is the Sermon on the Mount; so is the
golden rule that commands us to do to others as we would that others
should do to us; so is the teaching of the Apostle that of one blood
God has made all nations to dwell on the face of the earth; so is the
Constitution of the United States, and so are the laws and the customs
of every civilized country in the world; for nowhere, outside of the
United States, is any man denied civil rights on account of his color.”
He stood silent until the applause had died away, and introduced “the
defender of the rights of men.” The speech Robert Ingersoll made comes
down to us as one of the great legal defenses of all time.
The voice was the voice of Robert Ingersoll, but as Douglass listened
he heard the clear call of Daniel O’Connell, the fervent passion of
Theodore Parker, the dauntless courage of William Lloyd Garrison.
Sparks “flashing from each to each!”
So Frederick Douglass spoke the following winter when Wendell Phillips
died. All Boston tried to crowd into Faneuil Hall for the memorial to
this great “friend of man.” Douglass was chosen to deliver the address.
“He is not dead as long as one man lives who loves his fellow-men, who
strives for justice, and whose heart beats to the tread of marching
feet.”
* * * * *
In the spring the women, gathered in their Sixteenth National Suffrage
Convention, paid tribute to Wendell Phillips, and Douglass heard Miss
Helen Pitts speak briefly. When he rose he made his “co-worker and
former townswoman” a pretty compliment. The women on the platform
smiled their approval at Helen.
In the summer Douglass went out on a speaking tour. The 1884 election
was approaching, and throughout the country voices were questioning
the party in power. Bloody crimes and outrages in the South, betrayal
of all the principles and ideals of Abraham Lincoln, had not won over
the Southern white vote. Negroes in the North--in some doubtful states
their votes were important--began to leave “Lincoln’s Party.”
Douglass was steadfastly opposed to this trend. No possible good, he
said, could come out of the Negro’s lining up with the “Party of the
South.” It had been faithful to the slaveholding class during slavery,
all through the war, and was today faithful to the same ideals.
“I hope and believe,” he told friends, “that Abraham Lincoln’s party
will prove itself equally faithful to its friends ... friends with
black faces who during the war were eyes to your blind, shelter to your
shelterless, when flying from the lines of the enemy.... Leave these
men no longer compelled to wade to the ballot-box through blood.... A
government that can give liberty in its constitution ought to have the
power in its administration to protect and defend that liberty.”
By midsummer it was clear that the campaign would be a hard one. James
G. Blaine, the Republican candidate, was a popular figure. Grover
Cleveland, Democratic candidate, was hardly known outside his own
state. But the issues were not fought around two personalities.
When Douglass returned to Washington in August he heard about Miss
Amelia.
“She wasn’t sick at all,” Helen told him.
“Why didn’t you let me know? I would have come.” Douglass was deeply
distressed.
“There was no time. She wouldn’t have wanted us to call you from your
work when there was nothing you could do.” She spoke gently as to an
unhappy child, but her eyes were filled with tears.
And Douglass, beholding the understanding and compassion that lay in
her blue eyes, could not look away. A minute or an hour--time did not
matter, for the meaning of many years was compressed in that instant.
No word was said, their hands did not touch, but in that moment the
course of their lives changed.
Helen spoke first, a little breathlessly.
“Mr. Haley is breaking up the house. I’d--I’d like to take my vacation,
now that you’re back. I’ll--I’ll go home for a little while.”
He had turned away, his hand shifting the papers on his desk. He did
not look at her.
“Miss Pitts, may I--May I call to see you this evening?” he asked.
“Yes, Mr. Douglass,” Helen Pitts answered simply. “I’ll be at home.”
The next morning Douglass called on a minister who was also his close
friend. He told him that he was going to be married.
“I’d like for you to perform the ceremony.”
The minister was all smiling congratulation. The announcement took
him wholly by surprise. He had heard no whisper of romance involving
the great Frederick Douglass who, for all his sixty odd years, was a
handsome figure of a man. The minister beamed.
“You’re very wise. A man needs a good wife! And who is the fortunate
lady?”
He repeated the name, trying to place it. Douglass’ next words brought
him to his feet.
“Douglass!” Real alarm sounded in his voice. “You can’t! It’s suicide!”
Douglass smiled quietly. A warm peace filled his heart. He knew that
all the years of his living had not been barren. All the time he had
been growing into understanding.
“I should be false to all the purposes and principles of my life,” he
said, “if I did not marry this noble lady who has done me the honor to
consent to be my wife. I am a free man.” He stood up, balancing his
cane in his hands. He regarded his distraught friend with something
like pity. “I am free even of making appearances just to impress. Would
it not be ridiculous if, after having denounced from the housetops all
those who discriminate because of the accident of skin color, I myself
should practice the same folly?”
They said nothing about their plans to anyone, not even to Douglass’
children, but were married three days later in the minister’s home.
Then Douglass drove his bride across the Potomac River and out to
Anacostia. Within the next few days every paper in the country carried
accounts of this marriage. Most of what they said was untrue. They were
almost unanimous in condemnation.
When Grover Cleveland was elected President, white and black alike sat
back complacently, jubilantly waiting for the Democratic President
to “kick out” the Recorder of Deeds. Douglass himself did not expect
anything else. His adherence to the Republican party was well known. He
was a “staunch Republican” who had made no secret of his abhorrence of
a Democratic administration. With his wife he paid his formal respects
at the inauguration reception, but they did not linger in the parlors.
He was surprised when, upon returning home a few evenings later, he was
handed a large engraved card inviting Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Douglass
to the Executive Mansion.
“He was a robust, manly man,” Douglass said of Cleveland, “one who
had the courage to act upon his convictions.... He never failed,
while I held office under him, to invite myself and wife to his
grand receptions, and we never failed to attend them. Surrounded by
distinguished men and women from all parts of the country and by
diplomatic representatives from all parts of the world, and under
the gaze of late slaveholders, there was nothing in the bearing of
Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland toward Mrs. Douglass and myself less cordial
and courteous than that extended to the other ladies and gentlemen
present.”[31]
Within the course of the next two years Washington and the country
recovered some equanimity so far as Douglass was concerned. But it is
doubtful if anybody forgot.
Now Douglass decided on the fulfillment of a long-cherished desire.
They sailed for Europe.
“Don’t come back until you’ve really seen the world,” Ingersoll urged
them. “Take plenty of time. You’ll be richly repaid.”
They stayed away nearly two years. Douglass revisited England and
Ireland and Scotland. He missed the people with whom he had worked in
the old days, but their children received him royally. The two sisters,
Anna and Ellen Richardson, who forty-five years before had written to
Thomas Auld offering to buy his “runaway slave,” were still living.
Helen kissed their withered cheeks and breathed her thanks. They set
up housekeeping in Paris, watched the ships sail from Marseilles, and
climbed the old amphitheater in Arles. In Genoa Douglass was drawn,
more than to anything else, to Paganini’s violin exhibited in the
museum. This was Douglass’ favorite instrument. He had even learned to
play it a little.
“We’ll buy a violin while we’re here,” Helen promised. “It won’t be
Paganini’s, but we’ll get an instrument.”
“Well, it won’t sound like Paganini’s, either!” Under the Italian
sunshine that was enough to make them laugh. Pisa and then Rome, Naples
and Pompeii, Sicily.
Then eagerly they turned toward the rising sun--Egypt, the Suez Canal,
Libyan deserts, the Nile flowing through Africa.
Douglass’ heart beat fast. Sandy’s face came before him--Sandy and
the bit of African dust he had held in his hand so long ago. Perhaps
strength had flowed into him from that dust.
They made the voyage from Naples to Port Said in four days. The weather
was perfect, and at dawn they found themselves face to face with old
Stromboli, whose cone-shaped summit rises almost perpendicularly from
the sea.
“Nothing in my American experience,” Douglass claimed, “ever gave me
such a deep sense of unearthly silence, such a sense of fast, profound,
unbroken sameness and solitude, as did this passage through the Suez
Canal, moving smoothly and noiselessly between two spade-built
banks of yellow sand, watched over by the jealous care of England
and France. We find here, too, the motive and mainspring of English
Egyptian occupation and of English policy. On either side stretches
a sandy desert, to which the eye, even with the aid of the strongest
field-glass, can find no limit but the horizon; land where neither
tree, shrub nor vegetation of any kind, nor human habitation breaks
the view. All is flat, broad, silent and unending solitude. There
appears occasionally, away in the distance, a white line of life which
only makes the silence and solitude more pronounced. It is a line of
flamingoes, the only bird to be seen in the desert, making us wonder
what they find upon which to subsist.
“But here, too, is another sign of life, wholly unlooked for, and for
which it is hard to account. It is the half-naked, hungry form of a
human being, a young Arab, who seems to have started up out of the
yellow sand under his feet, for no town, village, house or shelter is
seen from which he could have emerged. But here he is, running by the
ship’s side up and down the sandy banks for miles and for hours with
the speed of a horse and the endurance of a hound, plaintively shouting
as he runs: ‘Backsheesh! Backsheesh! Backsheesh!’ and only stopping in
the race to pick up the pieces of bread and meat thrown to him from the
ship. Far away in the distance, through the quivering air and sunlight,
a mirage appears. Now it is a splendid forest and now a refreshing
lake. The illusion is perfect.”[32]
The memory of this half-naked, lean young Arab with the mirage behind
him made an indelible impression.
After a week in Cairo, Douglass wrote, “Rome has its unwashed monks,
Cairo its howling and dancing dervishes. Both seem equally deaf to the
dictates of reason.”
When they returned to Washington and to their home on Anacostia Heights
they knew that they had savored the full meaning of abundant living.
They had walked together in many lands and among many nationalities and
races; they had been received together by peoples of all shades, who
greeted them in many different languages; their hands had touched many
hands. They had so much they could afford to be tolerant.
Arrows of ignorance, jealousy or petty prejudice could not reach them.
In June, 1889, Frederick Douglass was appointed Minister to Haiti.
CHAPTER TWENTY
_The Môle St. Nicolas_
Secretary of State Blaine was disturbed. All morning bells had been
ringing and secretaries scurrying around like mad. With the arrival of
the New York shipowner, even the clerks in the outer offices knew that
something was “in the wind.”
The “problem of the West Indies” was perhaps the most important
unfinished business left over from the former Secretary of State.
Blaine had seen himself succeeding where William Seward had failed.
Circumstances were propitious and favorably disposed; the Môle St.
Nicolas, most coveted prize in the Caribbean, was practically within
his grasp--or had been.
Haiti, after seventy-five years of maintaining itself as firm and
invulnerable as its own Citadel, was now torn and weakened by civil
war. Six years before, a provisional government had been set up under
a General Légitime. Gradually Légitime assumed control, and two years
later France recognized his government as official. But for reasons of
their own, business interests in the United States preferred dealing
with General Hyppolite’s opposing forces, who termed the present
régime that of “the usurpers of Port-au-Prince.” President Cleveland
had listened to their advice and not recognized any government in
Haiti. That left everything wide open. The U.S.-West Indies Line and
the Charleston & Florida Steamship Line tackled shutting out the rival
British Atlas Steamship Company, and the dire need for coaling stations
was stressed in certain circles. At long last the United States had
high hopes of locking up the narrow Windward Passage, one of the
strategic routes on the world’s highway system of commerce.
Meanwhile Stephen Preston, Haitian Minister, was in the United States
pleading for his country’s recognition. Blaine played a cat-and-mouse
game, putting the anxious Preston off from week to week, yet according
him every ceremonial privilege as a minister and assuring him that the
matter of official recognition only awaited its turn before the new
President--Benjamin Harrison.
So matters stood in the latter part of May, 1889. Then Secretary Blaine
made two moves. He told Preston his terms for recognition: a naval
station in Haiti and representation of Haiti in European capitals by
the American ambassador to those countries! The Haitian’s olive face
paled. He murmured a few words, bowed and departed. The Secretary then
sent to President Harrison the names of an “investigating commission”
to go to Haiti. It was to be headed by Colonel Beverley Tucker of
Virginia.
Out of a clear sky, with no word of warning, Blaine’s papers still
lying unsigned on his desk, President Harrison recognized the Légitime
government in Haiti. At the same time he appointed the most widely
known Negro in America “Minister Resident and Consul-General to the
Republic of Haiti and chargé d’affaires to Santo Domingo.”
“A pretty kettle of fish!” stormed the shipowner.
Secretary Blaine struggled to maintain his dignity.
“A little premature, perhaps,” he temporized. “But our President has
gone on record as favoring the development of commerce with Latin
America, and we have no reason to believe that Frederick Douglass will
not co-operate in carrying forward the clearly expressed policies of
his government.”
“You are a fool!” snapped the shipowner.
The Secretary’s face flushed, and a vein throbbed at his temple.
“You forget,” he said evenly after a moment, “or perhaps you do not
know, that Frederick Douglass was Secretary of President Grant’s Santo
Domingo Commission; and Douglass had no part in its failure.”
“Whatever the reasons, what interests me is that the United States
didn’t get Samoná Bay.” The shipowner’s voice rasped. “I never trust
those--those _people_. It’s bad enough to have to do business with them
in the islands. Well”--he made a gesture of resignation--“I didn’t come
here to quarrel. You’ll simply have to handle this fellow.”
The Secretary picked up a sheet of paper from his desk. He was
wondering how well he or anybody else could “handle” Frederick Douglass.
“I’ve already dictated a letter to him in which I express the hope that
he will accept President Harrison’s appointment--”
The shipowner interrupted with something like a sneer.
“You’re certainly going out of your way to be cordial.”
“_Ignorant calf!_” was the Secretary’s unspoken thought. Aloud
he continued as if he had not heard. “--because his influence as
minister,” he said steadily, “is the most potent force we can send to
the Caribbean for the peace, welfare and prosperity of those weary and
unhappy people.”
“Um--um.” The idea was penetrating. “Not bad, not bad at all.”
“It can be late fall before he arrives.” They regarded each other
across the flat-topped desk. “Meanwhile--”
“Meanwhile,” the shipowner was getting to his feet, “much can happen.”
“I was thinking that.”
“Perhaps the usurper, Légitime, will not be on hand to greet our new
Ambassador.”
“Perhaps!”
The gentlemen bowed and separated.
That evening Stephen Preston sent a joyful letter home. “A miracle has
taken place, truly a miracle!”
And on Cedar Hill the Douglasses sat on their porch and re-read the
letter which a messenger had brought from Secretary of State Blaine.
“You deserve it, my dear. You deserve every bit of it!” She smiled at
her husband, her eyes shining with happiness. Douglass’ voice was a
little husky. The letter trembled in his hand.
“Secretary Blaine is right. This is important to every freedman in the
United States. It’s important to that valiant small nation which owes
its independence to a successful slave revolt. This recognition is
important to dark peoples everywhere. I am so grateful that I’m here to
do my part.”
And Helen Douglass reached out and took his hand. She was proud, so
very proud of him.
Telegrams and letters of congratulation came in, not only from all over
the United States, but from Mexico, South America, Africa. A clockmaker
in Zurich sent Douglass a great clock carved from a huge block of wood.
Newspapers in the United States only mentioned an unexpected
“turn-over” in Haiti “because it might affect the recent appointment.”
But when on October 7, 1889, Légitime was thrown out of office and
Hyppolite became president, the Administration declared it a purely
domestic matter, and the United States representative was instructed
to proceed to his post. Unexplained “troubles” had delayed Douglass’
departure, but now the reasons for keeping him in Washington rapidly
exhausted themselves. The first week in November, Douglass, accompanied
by his wife, sailed for Port-au-Prince.
Nature is lavish with her gifts in the Caribbean. They thought they had
seen her finest habiliments along the Riviera, but even world travelers
hold their breath or speak in awed whispers as out of the violet
distance emerges the loveliest jewel of the Antilles.
Across a bay of deepest blue, the purple of the mountains of La Gonaïve
loomed against the western sky as if tossed from the cerulean depths of
the gulf. Fanning up from the great bay rise the hills, wrinkled masses
of green and blue and gray and orange, their dim wave of color relieved
by crimson splotches of luxuriant gardens or by the pointed spires of
trees.
The city of Port-au-Prince spilled over into the water with its crowded
harbor, large and small boats and white sails skimming over the
surface. In the center of the city rose the great Gothic cathedral, to
one side the white palace occupied by Haiti’s President.
Two smart, attentive officials were on the dock to meet Frederick
Douglass. Behind sleek, glistening horses they drove the new Minister
and his wife to the spacious villa which was to be their home. The
house was already staffed with servants, who gathered, European
fashion, to greet the new tenants. The maids smiled shyly at Mrs.
Douglass, then whisked her away to her rooms. The officials took their
leave, saying that the President would be happy to receive Mr. Douglass
at his pleasure.
That afternoon, accompanied by his secretary, who would also act as
interpreter, Douglass drove to the palace to present his credentials.
He was cordially received by a uniformed adjutant. In a short while
they were being ushered up a wide, sweeping staircase and into a
frescoed hall. They paused here.
“There is the anchor of the _Santa Maria_,” the secretary whispered,
“the anchor Columbus lowered in the Môle St. Nicolas.”
Douglass walked closer. He was so deeply absorbed that he did not see
the huge doors swing open. The secretary had to touch his arm. The
President of Haiti was coming to greet the representative from the
United States, his hand extended. They went in to his study.
President Hyppolite was large and dark. He knew he was in a dangerous
game. He knew that he was only a pawn. Wary and watchful, he listened
more than he talked. For underneath everything else--far deeper than
personal ambitions--was his determination to keep Haiti out of the
scheming hands that clutched at her so greedily.
He hated all Spaniards, Frenchmen, Englishmen and Americans with equal
intensity. He studied this brown American, this ex-slave, who carried
himself with such dignity and who spoke with such assurance. Hyppolite
wondered how much the other man knew. He attended his visitor’s words
carefully, listening to catch any additional meanings in his voice. He
understood English, but he remained silent, his large head slightly
cocked to one side until the interpreter translated Douglass’ words
into French.
He answered in French. Choosing his words carefully, he expressed his
approval of “growing commercial intercommunications,” his hope for
closer and “mutually helpful” relations with the United States. Then he
touched upon Haiti’s long and independent existence and said that each
nation has the right to be proud of its autonomy.
“For a long time Haiti was an outcast among the nations of the world.
But Haiti remembers that the victory of Toussaint L’Ouverture was as
important to the United States as it was to Britain. By exterminating
the armies of Leclerc, we at the same time destroyed Napoleon’s dream
of an empire in the Mississippi valley. He was glad to sell Louisiana
at any price.”
The President was satisfied with the expression which lighted Douglass’
face when the interpreter had translated these words. His rather grim
face broke into a smile.
“I speak a little English,” he said in English.
Douglass grinned and returned with:
“_J’ai étudié le francais--un--une peu--mais ma femme--_” he stopped,
spreading his hands hopelessly.
They laughed together then, and the rest of the visit Hyppolite spoke
English.
“Here you will learn the French--but quick,” he said. “Altogether we
will help you.”
Douglass expressed his own and his wife’s appreciation of the
preparations for their comfort, and President Hyppolite said that
without doubt Mrs. Douglass would be very busy receiving the ladies of
Port-au-Prince.
After Douglass had bowed out, the President stood for a few minutes
drumming on his desk. Then he pulled a cord which summoned a certain
gentleman of state.
“Your Excellency!” The man waited. President Hyppolite spoke rather
slowly, in concise French.
“The Frederick Douglass is an honorable man. He intends to discharge
his duties in a manner which will bring credit and distinction to his
people and to his nation. It is to be remembered at all times that Mr.
Douglass is, first of all, Ambassador of the United States.”
“Yes, Your Excellency!”
The President dismissed him with a nod. Then he walked to the window
and stood looking at the Square. From this window he could not see
the middle of the Champs de Mars, but he was thinking of the statue
there--the statue of a black soldier thrusting his sword toward the
sky. This statue of Dessalines is Haiti’s symbol of her struggle for
freedom. Hyppolite sighed as he turned away from the window.
He wondered if there might be a better way.
Back in Washington activities had been bent upon getting John Durham
sent as special consul to Port-au-Prince because of his “special
fitness for the job.” Once more President Harrison’s action proved
disappointing. He sent John Durham to Santo Domingo City. It began to
be whispered about in Washington and New York that the Haitians had
snubbed Frederick Douglass and his wife. Stephen Preston heard the
rumors just before he sailed for home. He suspected their origin, but
he decided to hold his peace until he reached Port-au-Prince.
* * * * *
“Frederick,” Helen Douglass said, “this place will be my undoing! Such
ease is positively shameful. My only exercise is changing clothes for
another reception or dinner party. And the food!” Her voice became a
wail of despair. “I’m getting fat!”
He laughed.
“Well, madam, I might suggest horseback riding. I’m feeling fine!”
She shook her head.
“You? I can’t go galloping around these mountains the way you do.”
It was true. Frederick Douglass estimated his age to be over seventy.
Yet he was spending hours every day in the saddle.
“It’s the only way one can see Haiti!”
They took the boat to Cap Haitien, and while Helen was entertained
in one of the big white houses set on the slopes and surrounded by a
tropical garden, Douglass, accompanied by other horsemen, rode up to
the summit of Bonne-à-l’Evêque. Gradually the earth fell away until
the rocky edges of the mountain showed like snarling teeth, and the
foothills below seemed like jungle forest. An earthquake in 1842 was
said to have shaken the Citadel to the danger point; but Douglass,
viewing this mightiest fortress in the Western world, doubted whether
any human army with all its modern equipment could take it. Christophe
had built his Citadel at a height of twenty-six hundred feet--an
amazing feat of engineering so harmoniously constructed through and
through that, though thousands and thousands of natives must have died
during the course of its construction, one could almost believe it the
work of one man.
Douglass stood at the massive pile which is now the tomb of the most
dominant black man in history.
“If a nation’s greatness can at all be measured by its great soldiers,”
he thought, “then little Haiti, with its Toussaint L’Ouverture, Jean
Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, must surely be listed among
the first!”
Another day they took him up a high cliff overlooking the Môle St.
Nicolas.
“You have perhaps heard that Abbé Raynal called it the Gibraltar of the
West Indies,” the Haitian commented, watching Douglass’ face.
“See,” the second companion pointed with his riding crop, “the harbor
is practically landlocked. The entrance is only four miles wide and
deep enough on both sides to permit the largest vessels to pass close
to shore. At two hundred yards from land bottom is not touched with an
eighty-fathom line.”
Douglass gazed in wonder. The waters of the bay spread out, smooth and
unruffled as a great lake. The land on which they stood at the right of
the entrance rose sharply. Opposite, a wooded plain extended. At the
end of the bay clustered a group of buildings with the clear sheen of
water right in the middle of them.
“Man could not have designed anything so perfect,” Douglass murmured.
The first Haitian spoke again.
“They say all the fleets in Europe could lie here secure from every
wind. And the largest vessels in fifty fathoms of water could have
cables on land.”
“It is incredible!”
The Haitian turned as if to mount his horse. He spoke carelessly.
“A powerful nation holding this harbor might easily control not only
the Caribbeans but South America as well.”
“But a friendly nation,” Douglass reasoned with great sincerity, “with
the means at hand might use this harbor to bring prosperity to all the
Caribbean.”
“_Ce soit possible!_”
Douglass did not know French well enough to catch the slight sarcasm in
the Haitian’s words.
As they rode down the trail they spoke only of the scenery.
* * * * *
In November the United States warship _Yantic_ steamed into the Môle,
and Douglass reported that frequent references in the American press to
alleged desires on the part of his country to obtain bases there were
arousing fears among the Haitian people. Strangely enough, Douglass now
found himself the point of attack by the press. They said he was not
the man for the post.
“The fault of my character,” Douglass wrote later, “was that upon it
there could be predicated no well-grounded hope that I would allow
myself to be used, or allow my office to be used, to further selfish
schemes of any sort for the benefit of individuals, either at the
expense of Haiti or at the expense of the character of the United
States.”[33]
Events moved rapidly. Certain facts became apparent to Douglass, and
in March, 1890, he wrote to Secretary Blaine that certain American
business interests were bringing pressure upon Haiti. Douglass had
not at this time seen a report recorded by the Bureau of Navigation,
received January 22, 1890, which read:
The strategical value of this Island from a naval point of view is
invaluable, and this increases in direct proportion to the millions
which American citizens are investing in the Nicaragua Canal. The
United States cannot afford to allow any doubt to rest in the minds of
any Haitian as to our fixed determination to allow no one to gain a
foothold on, or establish a protectorate over this Island.
Home on leave for a few weeks in August, Douglass spoke on Haiti to a
large audience in Baltimore. He noted he had recently been under attack
by the press of the country.
“I believe the press has become reconciled to my presence in the
office except those that have a candidate for it,” he said, “and they
give out that I am going to resign. At them I fling the old adage ‘Few
die, and none resign.’ I am going back to Haiti.”
Let us take Douglass’ own account of what happened the following
winter. It appeared in the _North American Review_, September, 1891.
On January 26, 1891, Rear Admiral Gherardi, having arrived at
Port-au-Prince, sent one of his under-officers on shore to the
United States Legation, to invite me on board his flagship, the
_Philadelphia_.... I went on board as requested, and there for
the first time I learned that I was to have some connection with
negotiations for a United States coaling-station at the Môle St.
Nicolas; and this information was imparted to me by Rear Admiral
Gherardi. He told me in his peculiarly emphatic manner that he had
been duly appointed a United Sates special commissioner; that his
mission was to obtain a naval station at the Môle St. Nicolas; and
that it was the wish of Mr. Blaine and Mr. Tracy, and also of the
President of the United States, that I should earnestly co-operate
with him in accomplishing this object. He further made me acquainted
with the dignity of his position, and I was not slow in recognizing it.
In reality, some time before the arrival of Admiral Gherardi on
this diplomatic scene, I was made acquainted with the fact of his
appointment. There was at Port-au-Prince an individual, acting as
agent of a distinguished firm in New York, who appeared to be more
fully initiated into the secrets of the State Department at Washington
than I was, and who knew, or said he knew, all about the appointment
of Admiral Gherardi, whose arrival he diligently heralded in advance,
and carefully made public in all the political and business circles to
which he had access. He stated that I was discredited at Washington,
had, in fact, been suspended and recalled, and that Admiral Gherardi
had been duly commissioned to take my place. It is unnecessary to say
that it placed me in an unenviable position, both before the community
of Port-au-Prince and before the government of Haiti.
Anyone may read a carefully documented account of the negotiations
which followed in Rayford Logan’s _Diplomatic Relations of the United
States with Haiti_. There can be no question that Douglass strove
to carry out the wishes of his government while at the same time
“maintaining the good character of the United States.” He clearly
regretted certain features of the negotiations.
Not the least, perhaps, among the collateral causes of our non-success
was the minatory attitude assumed by us while conducting the
negotiation. What wisdom was there in confronting Haiti at such a
moment with a squadron of large ships of war with a hundred cannon and
two thousand men? This was done, and it was naturally construed into a
hint to Haiti that if we could not, by appeals to reason and friendly
feeling, obtain what we wanted, we could obtain it by a show of force.
We appeared before the Haitians, and before the world, with the pen
in one hand and the sword in the other. This was not a friendly and
considerate attitude for a great government like ours to assume when
asking a concession from a small and weak nation like Haiti. It was
ill-timed and out of all proportion to the demands of the occasion. It
was also done under a total misapprehension of the character of the
people with whom we had to deal. We should have known that, whatever
else the Haitian people may be, they are not cowards, and hence are
not easily scared.
Frederick Douglass was blamed for the failure of the negotiations. He
did resign the summer of 1891.
Logan says, “My own belief is that Douglass was sincerely desirous of
protecting the interests of a country of the same race as his, while at
the same time carrying out the wishes of his government and upholding
the integrity of that government. His failure was due rather to the
fact that there was no real public demand for the Môle, that Harrison
was not prepared to use force.... After all, the Panama Canal had not
been built; the United States had not even obtained her release from
the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty so that she could construct a canal under
her own control. The use of force against Haiti had to wait until the
canal had been constructed, until the United States had become a world
power, until a new period of recurrent revolutions had increased the
impatience in the State Department, and until the attention fixed
upon the World War permitted the military occupation of Haiti without
arousing too much protest in the United Sates.”[34]
In 1893 the Haitian government appointed Douglass Haiti’s Commissioner
to the World Columbian Exposition at Chicago; and in 1899 Haiti
contributed the first thousand dollars toward the bronze statue
of Frederick Douglass now standing in one of the public parks of
Rochester. Speaking in 1932, Dantes Bellegarde, Haitian Minister to
the United States, expressed the belief that were Frederick Douglass
still living he “would be among those who most ardently approved the
doctrine of international morality.... A policy respectful of the
rights of small nations such as had been exemplified in the activities
of Douglass while United States Minister in Haiti, is the only policy
capable of assuring to a powerful nation like the United States the
real and profound sympathy of the states of Latin America.”
Frederick Douglass was now nearly eighty years old. He had not retired
from public life. His snow-white bushy hair, topping the straight,
well-set figure was a familiar sight wherever people gathered to plan
a stronger, nobler nation, to build a more understanding world. His
faith in his country and in its ultimate destiny rendered him tolerant;
his ready wit was gentle. Little knots of people gathered round him
wherever he went and found themselves repeating his stories and
remembering best of all his rare good humor. The villagers in Anacostia
were proud of him. They told of the visitors who came from far and near
seeking his home.
On the morning of February 15, 1895, Susan B. Anthony arrived in
Washington to open the second triennial meeting of the National Woman’s
Council. This was her seventy-fifth birthday, and that afternoon Mr.
and Mrs. Frederick Douglass called to express their good wishes and
congratulations.
The big open meeting of the session was to be February 20. During the
morning Frederick Douglass appeared and, amid resounding applause, was
invited to the platform by the president, Mrs. Sewall. He accepted, but
declined to speak, acknowledging the applause only by a bow.
It was one of those bitterly cold days, and Douglass reached home just
in time for supper. He was in high good spirits. Even while he shook
off the snow and removed his boots in the hall he was recounting the
happenings of the day.
“Miss Anthony was at her best!” he said as he stood before the big open
fire, warming his hands.
“I’m a little tired,” he said after supper. He had started up the
stairs and stopped, apparently to look at the picture of John Brown
which hung there on the wall. His wife, in the living room, turned
quickly. The phrase was unlike him.
And then he fell. He was dead before they could get him to his room.
All the great ones spoke at his funeral. Susan B. Anthony read
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s memorial to the only man who had sustained her
demand for the enfranchisement of women at the first convention back in
1848.
There have been many memorials to him--in marble and bronze, in song
and poetry. But stone and wood are dead, and only we can make words
come alive. Frederick Douglass’ words reach us across the years:
Though I am more closely connected and identified with one class
of outraged, oppressed and enslaved people, I cannot allow myself
to be insensible to the wrongs and suffering of any part of the
great family of man. I am not only an American slave, but a man,
and as such, am bound to use my powers for the welfare of the whole
human brotherhood.... I believe that the sooner the wrongs of the
whole human family are made known, the sooner those wrongs will be
reached.[35]
_Epilogue_
Any portion of the story of man’s struggle for freedom is marvelously
strange. This is a true story, and therefore some footnotes are
necessary. In many instances I have quoted directly from Frederick
Douglass’ autobiographies. His own words, with their simple, forthright
quality, form a clear picture of the man.
This book attempts to bring together many factors. I am therefore
deeply indebted to all who have labored long and faithfully in
compiling this story. Special mention must be made of W. E. B. Du Bois’
_Black Reconstruction_ and _John Brown_, W. P. and F. J. Garrison’s
_William Lloyd Garrison_, Ida Harper’s _Susan B. Anthony_, Rayford
Logan’s _Diplomatic Relations of the United States with Haiti_, A. A.
W. Ramsay’s _Sir Robert Peel_, J. T. Wilson’s _The Black Phalanx_ and
_The Journal of Negro History_, edited by Carter G. Woodson.
* * * * *
It was on a Sunday afternoon in April that I first climbed Anacostia
Heights to Cedar Hill.
“Here are the terrace stairs,” they told me.
But I knew of the winding path that he had used, and I chose that. It
is tangled and overgrown in places now, but up I went until I reached
the sloping gardens and yes, there it was, just as I had expected, a
lilac bush blooming where the path met the graveled walk!
A typical Virginia homestead, with veranda, carriage house and
servants’ quarters, the house and grounds are preserved by the Douglass
Memorial Association of Negro Women’s Clubs. I stood beside the sundial
and tried to read its shadow, looked down into the well, and sat for a
while on a stone seat beneath a flowering trellis.
It was so easy to see them on the porch or in the sunny living rooms
with wide window-seats and fireplaces. Pictures looked down at me from
every side--Susan B. Anthony, William Lloyd Garrison, the young and
handsome Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips and Abraham Lincoln.
I sat dreaming at his desk a long time, fingering his notebooks and
the yellowing accounting sheets upon which he had tried to balance
that pitiful bank record. On three sides of the study books rose from
floor to ceiling--worn and penciled books. Books about people were
undoubtedly his favorites.
In the rooms upstairs were pictures and intimate small objects of
family life, and in his room in a locked case I saw a rusty musket and
a flag.
* * * * *
They opened the case for me, and I laid my face against the folds of
John Brown’s flag. There it was in this year of 1946, still furled and
standing in the corner of Frederick Douglass’ room.
I must have stayed in those rooms for some time, because suddenly I
realized it was growing dark and that I was alone. A glass door stood
ajar and I stepped through and out upon a little balcony, a tiny
balcony where one could sit alone and think. Surely many times on just
such spring evenings Douglass had stepped out on his balcony. Looking
far over the group of houses clustered at the foot of the hill, he
must have caught the gleam of the Potomac as I did, and beyond that
all Washington spread out like a bit of magic. Washington Monument
was not pointing to the sky in his day, but there was the beautiful
rounded dome of the Capitol. He could see that Capitol of which he
was so proud--he could contemplate all the intriguing pattern of the
city which he loved so much, capital of the nation which he served so
faithfully.
Then, all at once, as I stood there on the balcony, I knew why it
was that in the evening of his life Frederick Douglass’ eyes were so
serene. Not because he was lost in illusions of grandeur, not because
he thought the goal attained, not because he thought all the people
were marching forward. But as he stood there on his little balcony
he could lift his eyes and, looking straight ahead, could see over
the dome of the Capitol, steadfastly shedding its rays of hope and
guidance, the north star.
_Bibliography_
Austin, George Lowell, _The Life and Times of Wendell Phillips_.
Boston. Lee & Shepard, 1888.
Buckmaster, Henrietta, _Let My People Go_. New York. Harper &
Brothers, 1941.
Douglass, Frederick, _Narration of Frederick Douglass_. Boston. The
American Anti-Slavery Society, 1845.
----, _My Bondage and My Freedom_. New York. Miller, Orton & Mulligan,
1855.
----, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_. Boston. De Wolfe, Fiske
& Co., 1893.
Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, _Black Reconstruction_. New York. Harcourt
Brace & Co., 1935.
----, _John Brown_. Philadelphia. George W. Jacobs, 1909.
Garrison, W. P. and F. J., _William Lloyd Garrison_. Boston. Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., 1894.
Greeley, Horace, _The American Conflict_. Hartford. A. D. Case & Co.,
1864.
Harper, Ida, _Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony_. Indianapolis. The
Bowen-Merrill Co., 1899.
Hart, Albert B., _Slavery and Abolition_. New York Harper & Brothers,
1906.
Ingersoll, Robert, _Political Speeches_. New York. C. P. Farrell
(editor), 1914.
Logan, Rayford W., _Diplomatic Relations of United States with Haiti_.
University of North Carolina Press, 1941.
May, Samuel J., _Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict_. Boston.
Fields, Osgood & Co., 1869.
Mansergh, Nicholas, _Ireland in the Age of Reform and Revolution_.
London. G. Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1940.
Ramsey, A. A. W., _Sir Robert Peel_. London. Constable & Co., Ltd.,
1928.
Wilson, Joseph Thomas, _The Black Phalanx: History of the Negro
Soldiers of the United States_. Hartford. The American Publishing Co.,
1897.
Woodson, Carter G. (editor), _Journal of Negro History_. Washington,
1935-46.
_Footnotes_
[1] Douglass, _My Bondage and My Freedom_, chap. xxii, pp. 345-46.
[2] Douglass, _My Bondage and My Freedom_, chap. xxii, pp. 351-53.
[3] _Liberator_, Dec. 15, 1840.
[4] Douglass, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_, chap. v, p. 288.
[5] Douglass, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_, chap. vi, p. 249.
[6] Douglass, _My Bondage and My Freedom_, chap. xxiv, p. 385.
[7] _Ibid., loc. cit._
[8] Douglass, _My Bondage and My Freedom_, chap. xxiv, p. 373.
[9] Nephews of Garrison’s old detractor.
[10] Letter dated August 28, 1847. Garrison, _William Lloyd Garrison_,
Vol. III, chap. vii, p. 202.
[11] Du Bois, _John Brown_, chap. iv, p. 55. (Origin: _Records of the
Board of Trustees_, Oberlin College, Aug. 28, 1840.)
[12] Douglass, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_, chap. vii, pp.
337-39.
[13] Du Bois, _John Brown_, chap. vi, p. 126.
[14] Du Bois, _John Brown_, chap. vi, p. 133.
[15] Du Bois, _John Brown_, chap. vii, p. 147.
[16] Du Bois, _John Brown_, chap. vii, p. 153.
[17] Du Bois, _John Brown_, chap. iv, p. 144.
[18] Douglass, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_, chap. x, p. 385.
[19] Douglass, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_, chap. ix,
p. 397.
[20] Du Bois, _Black Reconstruction_, chap. vi, p. 157.
[21] Douglass, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_, chap. xii, p.
442.
[22] Du Bois, _Black Reconstruction_, chap. xi, p. 464.
[23] _New Orleans Tribune_, Jan. 17, 1865.
[24] Douglass, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_, chap. viii, pp.
467-68.
[25] The original of this petition was recently unearthed in the
Historical Archives of South Carolina. On the back of the document was
a notation: “This petition was not read in the Convention.” _Signed_;
John T. Sloa, Clerk of Convention. Printed in article by Herbert
Aptaker, _Journal of Negro History_, January, 1946.
[26] Congressional Globe, “39th Congress,” I, p. 74.
[27] Douglass, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_, chap. xvii, p.
561.
[28] C. P. Farrell (Editor), _The Political Speeches of Robert
Ingersoll_, Dresden edition.
[29] Douglass, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_, chap. xiv, pp.
486-88.
[30] Douglass, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_ (appendix), chap.
ii, p. 631.
[31] Douglass, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_, III, chap. v, p.
647.
[32] _Ibid._, III, chap. ix, p. 707.
[33] Douglass, _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_, III, chap. ix,
p. 723.
[34] Logan, _Diplomatic Relations of United States with Haiti_, chap.
xv, p. 457.
[35] _The Liberator_, March 27, 1846.
Transcriber’s Notes
Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Colloquial spelling in dialog has been retained as in the original.
Footnote 9 has two anchors in the text.
Footnotes have been moved to the end of the text.