Life and Times, Third Part

LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 435

class him with the contemners of the negro. Could that be established, it would convict him of duplicity and hypocrisy of the most revolting kind. But his whole life and character are in direct contradiction to that assumption.

Its Ducal Palaces, its grand Duomo, its fine galleries of art, its beautiful Arno, its charming environs and its many associations of great historical personages, especially of Michael Angelo, Dante and Savonarola, give it a controlling power over mind and heart. I have travelled over no equal space between any two cities in Italy where the scenery was more delightful than that between Florence and Venice. I enjoyed it with the ardor of a boy to whom all the world is new. Born and raised in a flat country without the diversity of hill and valley, mountains have always attracted me. Those in sight on this journey were far away but lost nothing by the soft haze that blended their dark summits with the clouds and sky. These were too, the mountains of the Tyrol, the scene of the patriotic exploits of Hofer and his countrymen. The railway between Florence and Venice is over some of the oldest and best cultivated parts of Italy. The land is rich and fruitful. Every outlook has the appearance of thrift. There is not a single point upon which to hang the reproach of laziness so commonly charged against the Italians. I saw in Italy nothing to justify this unenviable reputation. In city and country alike the people seemed to me remarkably industrious and well provided with food and raiment.

I could tell much of the once famous city of Venice, of Milan, Lucerne and other points subsequently visited, but it is enough that I have given my readers an idea of the use I made of my time during this absence from the scenes and activities that occupied me at home. I assume that they will rejoice that, after my life of hardships in slavery and of conflict with race and color predjudice and proscription at home, there was left to me a space in life when I could and did walk the world unquestioned; a man among men.

CHAPTER X. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1888.

Preference for John Sherman. Speech at the convention. On the stump. The tarrif question

Returning from Europe in 1887 after a year of sojourn abroad, I found, as is usual when our country is nearing the close of a Presidential term, the public mind largely occupied with the question in respect of a successor to the outgoing President. The Democratic Party had the advantage of the Republican Party in two points. It was already in power and had its mind fixed upon one

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candidate, in the person of Grover Cleveland, whose term was then expiring. Although he had not entirely satisfied the Southern section of his party or the Civil Service Reformers of the North, to whom he owed his election, he had so managed his administration that neither of these factions could afford to oppose his nomination for a second term of the Presidency. With the Republican party the case was different. It was not only out of power and deprived of the office holding influence and machinery to give it unity and force, but its candidates for Presidential honors were legion, and there was much doubt as to who would be chosen standard bearer in the impending contest. Among the doubters I was happily not one. From the first my candidate was Senator John Sherman of Ohio. Not only was he the man fitted for the place by his eminent abilities and tried statesmanship in regard to general matters, but more important still, he was the man whose attitude towards the newly enfranchised colored citizens of the South, best fitted him for the place. In the Convention at Chicago I did what I could to secure his nomination, as long as there was any ground of hope for success. In every convention of the kind there comes a time when the judgment of factions must yield to the judgment of the majority. Either Russell A. Alger of Michigan, Allison of Iowa, Gresham of Indiana, or Depew of New York, would in my opinion have made an excellent President. But my judgment as to whom was not the judgment of the Convention, so I went, as in duty bound, with the choice of the Majority of my party and have never regretted my course.

Although I was not a delegate to this National Republican Con\ention. but was, as in previous ones, a spectator, I was early honored by a spontaneous call to the platform and to address the convention. It was a call not to be disregarded. It came from ten thousand leading Republicans of the land. It offered me an opportunity to give what I thought ought to be the accepted key note to the opening campaign How faithfully I responded will be seen by the brief speech I made in response to this call. It was not a speech to tickle men's ears or to flatter party pride, but to stir men up to the discharge of an imperative duty. It would have been easy on such an occasion to make a speech composed of glittering generalities, but the cause of my outraged people was on my heart and I spoke out of its fullness, and the response that came back to me showed that the great audience to which I spoke was in sympathy with my sentiments. After thanking the Convention for the honor of its hearty call upon me for a speech I said:–

"I have only one word to say to this Convention and it is this: I hope this Convention will make such a record in its proceedings as will entirely put it

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out of the power of the leaders of the Democratic party and the leaders of the Mugwump party to say that they see no difference between the position of the Republican party, in respect to the class I represent, and that of the Democratic Party. I have a great respect for a certain quality for which the Democratic party is distinguished. That quality is fidelity to its friends, its faithfulness to those whom it has acknowledged as its masters during the last forty years. It was faithful to the slave holding class during the existence of slavery. It was faithful to them before the war. It gave them all the encouragement that it possibly could without drawing its own neck into the halter. It was also faithful during the period of reconstruction and it has been faithful ever since. It is to-day, faithful to the solid South. I hope and believe that the great Republican party will prove itself equally faithful to its friends, those 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. They are as faithful to-day as when the great Republic was in the extremest need; when its fate seemed to tremble in the balance; when the crowned heads of the Old World were gloating owr our ruin, saying, 'Aha, aha! the great Republican bubble is about to burst.' When your army was melting away before the tire and pestilence of rebellion; when your star spangled banner trailed in the dust or, heavy with blood, drooped at the mast head, you called upon the negro. Yes, Abraham Lincoln called upon the negro to reach forth with his iron arm and catch with his steel fingers your faltering flag, and he came, he came full two hundred thousand strong. Let us in the platform we are now about to promulgate remember the brave black men, and let us remember that these brave black men are now stripped of their constitutional right to vote. Let this remembrance be embodied in the standard bearer whom you will present to the country. Leave these men no longer compelled to wade to the ballot box through blood, but extend over them the protecting arm of this Government and make their pathway to the ballot box as straight and as smooth and as safe as that of any other class of citizens. Be not deterred from this duty by the cry of the bloody shirt. Let that shirt be waved as long as there shall be a drop of innocent blood upon it. A government that can give liberty in its constitution ought to have the power in its administration to protect and defend that liberty. I will not further take up your time. I have spoken for millions and my thought is now before you."

As soon as the Presidential campaign was fairly opened and a request was made for speakers to go before the people and support by the living voice the nominations and principles of the Republican Party, though some-

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what old for such service and never much of a stump speaker, I obeyed the summons. In company with my young friend Charles S. Morris, a man rarely gifted with eloquence, I made speeches in five different states, indoors and out of doors, in skating rinks and public halls, day and night, at points where it was thought by the National Republican Committee that my presence and speech would do most to promote success.

While the Committee was anxious to have the question of tariff made the prominent topic in the campaign, it did not in words restrict me to that one topic. I could not have gone into the field with any such restriction, had any such been imposed. Hence I left the discussion of the tariff to my young friend Morris, while I spoke for justice and humanity, as did that noble woman and peerless orator, Miss Anna E. Dickenson, whose heart has ever been true to the oppressed, and who was a speaker in the same campaign. I took it to be the vital and animating principle of the Republican party. I found the people more courageous than their party leaders. What the leaders were afraid to teach, the people were brave enough and glad enough to learn. I held that the soul of the nation was in this question and that the gain of all the gold in the world would not compensate for the loss of the Nation's soul. National honor is the soul of the Nation, and when this is lost all is lost. The Republican party and the Nation were pledged to the protection of the constitutional rights of the colored citizens. If they refused to perform their promise, they would be false to their highest trust. As with an individual, so too, with a nation, there is a time when it may properly be asked "What doth it profit to gain the whole world and thereby lose one's soul?"

With such views as these I supported the Republican party in this somewhat remarkable campaign. I based myself upon that part of the Republican platform which I supported in my speech before the Republican Convention at Chicago. No man who knew me could have expected me to pursue any other course. The little I said on the tariff was simply based upon the principle of self protection taught in every department of nature whether in men, beasts or plants. It comes with the inherent right to exist. It is in every blade of grass as well as in every man and nation. If foreign manufactures oppress and cripple ours and serve to retard our natural progress, we have the right to protect ourselves against such efforts . Of course this right of self-protection has its limits, and the thing most important is to discover those limits and to observe them. There is no doubt as to the principle, but like all other principles, it may not justify all the inferences which may be deduced from it. There seems to be no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties as to the principle of protection. They only differ in the inferences

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drawn from the principle. One is for a tariff for revenue only and the other is for a tariff not only for revenue, but for protection to such industries as are believed to stand in need of protection. While on this question I have always taken sides with the Republican party. I have always felt that in the presence of the oppression and persecution to which the colored race is subjected in the Southern States, no colored man can consistently base his support of any party upon any other principle than that which looks to the protection of men and women from lynch law and murder.

CHAPTER XI. ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT HARRISON.

Appointed Minister to Haïti. Unfriendly criticism. Admiral Gherardi.

My appointment by President Harrison in 1889, to the office of Minister Resident and Consul General to the Republic of Haïti, did not pass without adverse comment at the time it was made; nor did I escape criticism at any time during the two years I had the honor to hold that office. In respect to the unfavorable comments upon my appointment, it may be truly said that they had their origin and inspiration from two very natural sources: First, American race and color prejudice, and second, a desire on the part of certain influential merchants in New York, to obtain concessions from Haïti upon grounds that I was not likely to favor. When there is made upon a public man an attack by newspapers differing at all other points and united only in this attack, there is some reason to believe that they are inspired by a common influence. Neither my character nor my color was acceptable to the New York Press. The fault of my character was that upon it there could be predicated no well grounded hope that l would allow myself to be used or allow my office to he used to further selfish schemes of any sort for the benefit of individuals either at the expense of Haïti or at the expense of the character of the United States. and the fault of my color was that it was a shade too dark for American taste. It was not charged, as perhaps, it well might have been, that I was unfit for the place by reason of inexperience and want of aptitude to perform the duties of the office; but the color argument was relied upon. It was that I was not colored right for the place although I matched well with the color of Haïti. It was held that the office should be given to a white man both on the ground or fitness and on the ground of efficiency. On the ground of fitness because it was alleged that Haïti would rather have in her Capital a white Minister Resident and Consul General than a colored one; and on the ground of effi-