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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 443

apologies they are pleased to make for my failure is my color; and the impli-
cation is that a white man would have succeeded where I failed . This color
argument is not new. It besieged the White House before I was appointed
Minister-Resident and Consul-General to Haïti. At once and all along, the
line of contention was then raised that no man with African blood in his
veins should be sent as Minister to the Black Republic. White men professed
to speak in the interest of black Haïti; and I could have applauded their alac-
rity in upholding her dignity if I could have respected their sincerity. They
thought it monstrous to compel black Haïti to receive a Minister as black as
herself. They did not see that it would be shockingly inconsistent for Haïti to
object to a black Minister while she herself is black.

"Prejudice sets all logic at defiance. It takes no account of reason or
consistency. One of the duties of Minister in a foreign land is to cultivate
good social as well as civil relations with the people and government to
which he is sent. Would an American white man, imbued with our national
sentiments, be more likely than an American colored man to cultivate such
relations? Would his American contempt for the colored race at home fit him
to win the respect and good-will of colored people abroad? Or would he play
the hypocrite and pretend to love negroes in Haïti when he is known to hate
negroes in the United Statcs,– aye, so bitterly that he hates to see them
occupy even the comparatively humble position of Consul-General to Haïti?
Would not the contempt and disgust of Haïti repel such a sham?

"Haïti is no stranger to Americans or to American prejudice. Our white
fellow-countrymen have taken little pains to conceal their sentiments. This
objection to my color and this demand for a white man to succeed me spring
from the very feeling which Haïti herself contradicts and detests. I defy any
man to prove, by any word or act of the Haïtien Government, that I was less
respected at the capital of Haïti than was any white Minister or consul. This
clamor for a white Minister for Haïti is based upon the idea that a white man
is held in higher esteem by her than is a black man, and that he can get more
out of her than can one of her own color. It is not so, and the whole free his-
tory of Haïti proves it not to be so. Even if it were true that a white man
could, by reason of his alleged superiority, gain something extra from the
servility of Haïti, it would be the height of meanness for a great nation like
the United States to take advantage of such servility on the part of a weak
nation. The American people are too great to be small, and they should ask
nothing of Haïti on grounds less just and reasonable than those upon which
they would ask anything of France or England. Is the weakness of a nation
a reason for our robbing it? Are we to take advantage, not only of its weak-