Henry O. Wagoner, Jr. to Frederick Douglass, April 2, 1874

HENRY O. WAGONER, JR., TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Paris, [Fr.]^{1Wagoner wrote on stationery with the printed letterhead: “Consulat Général / Des Etats-Unis d’ Amérique / 55, Rue de Chateaudun.”} 2 April 1874.

HON FREDERICK DOUGLASS,

WASHINGTON, D.C.

MY DEAR SIR,

The valuable assistance you rendered me in obtaining my appointment^{2With aid from Douglass, Henry O. Wagoner, Jr., secured a position as a consular clerk in Paris on 14 November 1873. He remained employed in France until he died from consumption at age twenty-seven in 1878. Douglass Papers, ser. 3, 1: 288n; Denver Daily Rocky Mountain News, 29 March 1878; Grant, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 24: 112n.} would seem to render it my duty to write you on my arrival at my post. But it is less in this light than as a token of my personal esteem for yourself, of whose existence and intensity you cannot be ignorant, that I would have you view this letter

Some days ago I sent a letter to the Era.^{3This letter was apparently never published in the New National Era.} It was a “harum scareum”^{4Generally spelled “harum scarum,” the phrase means reckless or impetuous.} affair, but, if you should stumble upon it and trouble yourself to read it, you will find in it a more detailed account of my impressions of the voyage than I can give in this letter. And to you, who have travelled so extensively in England, it would be folly to dwell upon my visit of a few days. I could not hope to interest you. Nor shall I now dwell upon Paris. Indeed it would be hard to say anything on this subject which has not already been written a hundred times. In fact pen-pictures are so multitudenous that we Americans all know Paris well enough on the printed page. What we want now is to see it for ourselves. So it was with me and I doubt not it is the same with you.

When I called on Mr. Washburn^{5Elihu Benjamin Washburne (1816–87), congressman and diplomat, was born in Livermore, Maine. He studied law at Maine Wesleyan Seminary and Harvard Law School. He was admitted to the bar in 1840 and moved to Galena, Illinois. His successful legal career led him to practice before the Illinois Supreme Court in Springfield, where he befriended Abraham Lincoln and aligned himself with the Whig party. Elected in 1852, he served eight consecutive terms in Congress, first as a Whig and then as a Republican. Washburne emerged as a leader in the Republican party, and his close friendship with Lincoln amplified his influence during the Civil War. Familiar with Ulysses S. Grant from Galena, Washburne helped him secure an appointment as a brigadier general at the beginning of the war and supported him throughout the conflict. During Reconstruction, Washburne sided with the Radicals and opposed Andrew Johnson. In 1868, President Grant appointed him secretary of state, although Washburne resigned five days later. Instead, he accepted the offer of minister to France and held that position for eight years. He lived the remainder of his life in Chicago, where he served as president of the Chicago Historical Society and penned Recollections of a Minister to France, 1869–1877, 2 vols. (1887). Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, 23 October 1887; John Y. Simon, “From Galena to Appomattox: Grant and Washburne,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 58: 165–89 (1965); ANB, 22: 750–51.} after my arrival among his first inquiries was in regard to yourself. I have been anxious to know whether you still retain your original intention of visiting Paris this summer and have just been gratified by receiving a letter from my father in which he states he has received one from you reiterating it.

I am convinced that the Paris Consulate is the most desirable one under our Govt. and am, of course, pleased to be connected with it. I could only wish that my salary were more, as my absolute expenses here are more than they were in Washington. Yes, I could in this connection, wish one thing more; and that is that you were Consul General. How is it that you never had an eye to it? I am sure it would suit you admirabily. You might suppose there would be some technicalities about its duties which might trouble you. But it is not so. There is not a question you would be called upon to decide but what you could do and not “half think”. And then, if you were here, I dont think that the Consul General would dictate dispatches for me to write so full of bad grammar and school-boy sentences that my pen would recoil with disgust. Of course I don’t mean to reflect upon the present incumbent for that be—well, what shall I say?— unparliamentary, that will do well enough.

It were superfluous for me to say that I have been deeply touched at the death of Chas. Sumner.^{6After years of declining health, Charles Sumner suffered a heart attack and died in his Washington, D.C., home on 11 March 1874. Donald, Sumner and the Rights of Man; ACAB, 5: 747–49.} But I have been patially consoled at seeing the distinguished homage which has been paid to his memory. My feeble pen shall essay no word of tribute. The most impressive language I could Command would be but a mockery of the real feelings which his death excites in me, or, at best, but a faint and distant echo of them. In this connection let me say that I recognize more than a fluent sentence in your declaration that “Mr. Sumner lived to a time when his death would contribute more to his objects than the continuance of life.”^{7The phrases quoted by Wagoner cannot be traced to reports of Douglass’s eulogy for Sumner delivered at the Sumner School in Washington, D.C., on the evening of 16 March 1874, or in the editorial on Sumner’s passing in the New National Era of 19 March 1874. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 4: 397–401.} And the admission of this implies no want of sorrow at his demise.

I do not think much of the French character. They squander an unreasonable share of their time in Cafés, smoking, drinking coffee, beer and wine and talking with the courtezans who infest those places. Some of these times, when my pen seems to run easy, I may come down on them with all my power of denunciation. Such, of course, does not suit me and the result is I resort to more laborious reading and writing. I am, perhaps, now, in this great metropolis where every one is supposed to h give himself up to the amusements which abound here, more of a student than I was when I was in Washington with my name on the class-rolls of the Law Dept. of Howard University.^{8In 1870, Henry O. Wagoner, Jr., enrolled in the Howard University Law School and graduated in 1873. Denver Daily Rocky Mountain News, 10 September 1873; Union Alumni Association, Alumni Catalogue of Howard University with List of Incorporators, Trustees, and Other Employees, 1867–1896 (Washington, D.C., 1896), 27.}

Please present my tenderest regards to Mrs. Douglass^{9Anna Murray Douglass.} and accept my best wishes for yourself—

I am, very sincerely,

Yours, etc.

H. O. WAGONER, JR

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 733–36, FD Papers, DLC.

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