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CHARLES R. DOUGLASS TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Washington, D.C. 26 February 1870.
DEAR FATHER,
Your letter came duly, and I was glad to know that my letter had been received at Chicago.1As part of a speaking tour of the Midwest arranged by the Western Lecture Association, Douglass travelled to Chicago, Illinois, on 9 February 1870. According to the Chicago Tribune, Douglass was scheduled to deliver his “Our Composite Nationality” speech for the benefit of the Olivet Baptist Church. From there, he continued his lecture tour, arriving in Decorah, Iowa, on 12 February. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 4: xxviii; Chicago Tribune, 4 February 1870; Decorah (Iowa) Republican, 4 February 1870; Peoria (Ill.) Daily Transcript, 5 February 1870. Fred.2Frederick Douglass, Jr. has written to you, & through him you will learn more of the paper than I am able to inform you.
Yesterday was one of the greatest days to me, in the history of this Country.
I was present and listened to the dying groans of the last of Democracy, it was on the occasion of administering the oath to H. R. Revels3Of African and Native American descent, Hiram Rhoades Revels (1822–1901) worked as a barber in North Carolina until he attended school in Indiana and Ohio. He became the minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore in 1845. During the Civil War, Revels worked as a recruiter for African American soldiers, for whom he also served as chaplain. After the war, he settled as a minister in Natchez, Mississippi, and soon entered politics as a Republican. Although he was the first African American to take a seat in the U.S. Senate (1870–71), he opposed Radical Republicanism and later supported the Democratic party’s campaign to end Republican rule in Mississippi in 1875. In 1871–74 and 1876–83, he served as president of Alcorn University and edited the Southwestern Christian Advocate. He continued in the ministry for the remainder of his life, which included leading a congregation for a period of time in Richmond, Indiana. Billy Libby, “Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi Takes His Seat, January–February 1870,” Journal of Mississippi History, 37: 381–94 (November 1975); Julius E. Thompson, “Hiram Rhodes Revels, 1827–1901: A Reappraisal,” JNH, 79: 297–303 (Summer 1994); NCAB, 2: 405–06; DAB, 8: 513. as U. S. Senator. The Democrats fought hard, but were met on all sides with unanswerable arguments in behalf of justice and right. The fight was on the citizenship of colored men. Even that dead & odious “Dred Scott Decision” was lugged in by the Democrats to show that blacks were not citizens, but Senators Scott4John Scott (1824–96), U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, was born in Alexandria, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. He studied law with a local judge and started his own legal practice in 1846. Beginning in 1857, Scott frequently represented the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in litigation. Originally a Democrat, he won a term in the state house of representatives on the Union party ticket in 1862 and subsequently became a Republican. Scott served a single term in the U.S. Senate (1869– 75), where he worked for stronger legislation against the Ku Klux Klan. After leaving Washington, Scott became general solicitor for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company; he declined an invitation to serve as President Ulysses S. Grant’s secretary of the interior. J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1883), 96; John W. Jordan, Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania, 32 vols. (New York, 1914–67), 6: 2114–16; NCAB, 24: 187; BDUSC (online). of Pennsylvania, Drake5Charles Daniel Drake (1811–92), lawyer and Republican U.S. senator, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended St. Joseph’s College in Bardstown, Kentucky, and then Partridge’s Military Academy in Middletown, Connecticut. Following his studies, he entered the U.S. Military Academy in 1827, but resigned three years later to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1833, and a year later he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he continued to practice law. Initially a Whig, Drake later briefly joined the Know Nothing party. Following the collapse of the Whig party in the mid1850s, Drake joined the Democrats and served in the Missouri state legislature in 1859–60. In the early 1860s he began speaking out against slavery and aligned himself with the Radical Republicans. He played a significant role in passing Missouri’s state constitution in June 1865, and thus it was nicknamed the “Drake Constitution.” He then served in the U.S. Senate from 1867 to 1870. Grant appointed him chief justice of the U.S. Court of Claims, where he served from 1870 until his retirement in 1885. ANB (online); BDUSC (online). of Mo. Stewart6William Morris Stewart (1825–1909), U.S. senator from Nevada, was born in Galen, New York, and later moved with his parents to Trumbull County, Ohio. He taught mathematics at Lyons Union School in Ohio, and in 1848 he enrolled in Yale College. He left Yale after three terms to seek his fortune in the gold fields near Nevada County, California. He then studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1852. He established a practice in Nevada City and quickly became a district attorney. He began his political career as a Whig and attended the 1852 Whig National Convention. In the mid1850s he aligned himself with the Democrats until his pro-Union sentiments pushed him to join the Republican party after the Civil War. He moved to Virginia City, Nevada, in 1860 and was a member of the territorial council in 1861 and the state constitutional convention in 1863. Nevada entered the Union in the autumn of 1864, and Stewart was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Union Republican. In the Senate, he favored President Johnson’s impeachment and drafted the Senate version of the Fifteenth Amendment. He withdrew from the senatorial race in 1874 but was reelected in 1887. He secured his reelection in 1893 as a Silver Republican, and in 1900 he rejoined the Republican Party, serving in the Senate until 1905. He died in Washington, D.C., in April 1909. William M. Stewart, Reminiscences of Senator William M. Stewart of Nevada, ed. George Rothwell Brown, (New York, 1908); ANB, 20: 755–57. of Nev. Nye7James Warren Nye (1814–76), a senator from Nevada, was born in De Ruyter, New York. After receiving his secondary education at Homer Academy, he practiced law in Madison County, New York. He joined the Democratic party and served as a district attorney in 1839, surrogate of Madison County (1844–47), and judge of the county court (1847–51). In the mid-1850s he abandoned the Democratic party and joined the newly formed Republicans. He became the first president of the Metropolitan Board of Police in New York City in 1857 and served until 1860. President Lincoln appointed him territorial governor of Nevada in 1861, and when the state entered the Union in 1864, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. In Washington, D.C., he supported the Radical Republicans and their plans for Reconstruction. He sought reelection but was defeated in 1873. Soon after his political career ended, he was committed to an insane asylum in White Plains, New York, where he died in 1876. Effie Mona Mack, “James Warren Nye: A Biography,” Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, 4: 7–44 (July–December 1961); ANB, 16: 567–68. of Nev. Sawyer8Frederick Adolphus Sawyer (1822–91), U.S. senator from South Carolina, was born in Bolton, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard University in 1844, he taught in New England until 1859. He then moved to Charleston, South Carolina, and took charge of the state normal school. Although he desired to return to the North at the beginning of the Civil War, he remained in Charleston, teaching until early 1864, when he moved his family back to Massachusetts. In February 1865, he returned to Charleston, where he aided in the reconstruction of South Carolina. When the state was readmitted to the Union, he was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate and served from 1868 to 1873. After his term, he served as an assistant secretary of the treasury for a year, was employed in the U.S. Coast Survey (1874–80), and worked as a special agent of the War Department (1880–87). Following his service in Washington, D.C., he ran a preparatory school in Ithaca, New York, and tutored students from Cornell University. He moved to Tennessee in 1889 and died two years later. Edward Wheelwright, The Class of 1844, Harvard College: Fifty Years after Graduation (Cambridge, Mass., 1896), 194–203; BDUSC (online). of S. C. Trumbull9Lyman Trumbull (1831–96), who was born in Colchester, Connecticut, and educated at Bacon Academy, became a lawyer and a U.S. senator from Illinois. In his three terms in office (1855–73), Trumbull was in turn a Democrat, a Republican, and, finally, a Liberal Republican who supported Horace Greeley for president. When the Liberal Republican movement collapsed, Trumbull returned to the Democratic fold. During the Civil War, Trumbull strongly supported his friend Abraham Lincoln. During Reconstruction, he championed reforms favorable to blacks, particularly the Freedmen’s Bureau, but congressional rejection of his proposals dampened his radicalism and edged him toward a more moderate political course. Trumbull opposed the impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson and was one of the seven senators who voted against conviction. In later years, Trumbull supported Populist candidates in the Midwest and drew up a declaration of principles for the People’s party that was accepted at its St. Louis convention in 1894. Horace White, The Life of Lyman Trumbull (Boston, 1913); Ralph J. Roske, His Own Counsel: The Life and Times of Lyman Trumbull (Reno, 1979); ACAB, 6: 166; NCAB, 12: 22; DAB, 19: 19–20. & many others knocked that decision higher than a kite, by their strong and logical arguments. Senator Wilson10Henry Wilson. appeared to be the happiest man in the whole body, not even excepting Revels, who advanced to the Desk and took the oath in a very dignified manner. I hope that he may bear up under the new responsibilities, but I fear he is weak.
Many voices in the Galleries were heard by me to say, If it could only have been Fred. Douglass, and my heart beat rapidly when I looked into that crowded Gallery, and upon the crowded floor, to notice the great and deep interest manifested all around; it looked solemn, and the thought flashed from my mind that that honor, for the first time confered upon a colored man, should have been confered upon you, and I am satisfied that many Senators would much more willingly see you come there than to see the Reverend gentleman who has just taken his seat.
But the door is open, and I expect yet to see you pass in, not though, as a tool as I think this man is, to fill out an unexpired term of one year, coming from a State too that has a large majority of colored voters; but from your native State to fill the chair; for the long and fullest term, of either Vickers11George Vickers (1801–79), lawyer and senator, was born in Chestertown, Maryland. He studied law, passed the bar in 1832, and practiced in his hometown. He served as a major general of the state militia in 1861 and was a presidential elector for the Democratic ticket in 1864. After serving in the Maryland Senate (1866–67), he was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat in 1868 and served until 1873. Following his term, he resumed his law practice in Chestertown and died there in 1879. Thomas William Herringshaw, Herringshaw’s National Library of American Biography, 5 vols. (Chicago, 1909), 5: 552; BDUSC (online). or Hamilton,12William Thomas Hamilton (1820–88) was born in Hagerstown, Maryland. His parents died at an early age, and he was raised by two uncles in Boonsboro. Hamilton was admitted to the bar in Maryland and in 1846 was elected to the House of Delegates on the Democratic ticket. In 1848 he won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, which he held until 1855. From that time until 1869, Hamilton repeatedly turned down nominations offered to him, including that of the governorship in 1861, to focus on his career as a lawyer. In 1869 the state legislature chose him for a term in the U.S. Senate. In 1880 he was elected governor of Maryland. Despite his popularity among the voters, Hamilton did not work well with the legislature, to the consternation of the Democratic party, and thus did not seek reelection in 1884. Baltimore Evening Capital, 26 October 1888; Baltimore Sun, 27 October 1888; Scharf, History of Baltimore, 745–47. who only yesterday, made long wails and harangues against negro citizenship.
I met Joseph Curtis13Joseph Curtis (1817–83) was the longtime business manager of the Rochester Union and Advertiser. His wife, Mary Braithwite Fish Curtis (1825–73), actively supported abolitionism and women’s rights. Both were members of the Unitarian church in Rochester. Peck, History of Rochester and Monroe County, 1:193–94; Ambrose Milton Shotwell, Annals of Our Colonial Ancestors and Their Descendants; or Our Quaker Forefathers and Their Posterity (Concord, Mich., 1895), 221; Hewitt, Women’s Activism and Social Change, 61, 118. and family a few moments ago in the halls of this Department. She said she witnessed the pleasing sight of yesterday in the Senate, he said nothing of the kind, but enquired particularly after you.
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We are all well, and do pretty much as usual.
I hear from home frequently through William and Libbie14Mary Elizabeth “Libbie” Murphy Douglass. who spent a week with mother.
We have had it very cold for nearly a week. I see that you have had very severe weather also.
I was down for a few days with sore throat, but am well again.
I have your list now & will write oftener,
All send love,
Affcy Your Son
CHAS. R. DOUG LASS
P. S. I think, as a duty you owe to yourself & those who are mostly interested in you, that before your health fails you, you should make this winter, the last one to take such hard and killing tours through the West as you have & are now taking. You cant feel that you have failed to do your duty in no sense, and as years are creeping over you, some reward should now be bestowed upon you as a small pittance for a long & devoted life of usefulness to a race which at this day, as the fruits of your efforts, stands on a political footing with all men.
There would be no impropriety, in my opinion, of your returning and selecting a home in your native State, from which for so long a time you have been an exile, and through the chances of life, ultimately come to the [illegible].
C. R. D.
ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 521–23, FD Papers, DLC.
