Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 20 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
History
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 20 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
This outrage was followed by an incident in which the same sentiments
were revealed. Frederick Douglass, remarkable for his intelligence as
for his eloquence, and always agreeable in personal relations, whose
only offence is a skin not entirely Caucasian, was selected by the
President to accompany the Commissioners to San Domingo,--and yet on
his return, and almost within sight of the Executive Mansion, he was
repelled from the common table of the mail-steamer on the Potomac,
where his companions were already seated; and thus through him was the
African race insulted and their equal rights denied. But the President,
whose commission he had borne, neither did nor said anything to right
this wrong, and a few days later, when entertaining the Commissioners
at the Executive Mansion, actually forgot the colored orator whose
services he had sought.[155] But this indignity is in unison with the
rest. After insulting the Black Republic, it is easy to see how natural
it was to treat with insensibility the representative of the African
race.
ALL THESE THINGS IN ISSUE NOW.
Here I stay this painful catalogue in its various heads, beginning
with nepotism and gift-taking with repayment by office, and ending
in the contrivance against San Domingo with indignity to the African
race,--not because it is complete, but because it is enough. With
sorrow unspeakable have I made this exposure of pretensions, which,
for the sake of republican institutions, every good citizen should
wish expunged from history; but I had no alternative. The President
himself insists upon putting them in issue; he will not allow them
to be forgotten. As a candidate for reëlection he invites judgment,
while partisans acting in his behalf make it absolutely necessary by
the brutality of their assault on faithful Republicans unwilling to
see their party, like the Presidential office, a personal perquisite.
If his partisans are exacting, vindictive, and unjust, they act only
in harmony with his nature, too truly represented in them. There is
not a ring, whether military or senatorial, that does not derive its
distinctive character from himself. Therefore, what they do and what
they say must be considered as done and said by the chieftain they
serve. And here is a new manifestation of that sovereign egotism which
no taciturnity can cover up, and a new motive for inquiry into its
pernicious influence.
THE GREAT PRESIDENTIAL QUARRELLER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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