Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

At the Republican Convention of 1888, Douglass supports John Sherman of Ohio, but the party instead nominates Benjamin Harrison. Douglass also delivers a speech at the convention urging party faithful to remain true to the oppressed Black people of the South. In light of the recent Supreme Court decision invalidating the 1875 Civil Rights Act, Douglass’s plea comes with urgency:

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 (503).

On the campaign trail, Douglass finds ordinary Republican voters “more courageous than their party leaders” (503). Those “leaders” prefer to focus on the tariff issue. Douglass has no quarrel with Republican orthodoxy on protective tariffs, but it is not the issue that has animated the Republican party since its inception—the issue to which Douglass has devoted his life.

In 1889, President Harrison appoints Douglass Minister Resident and Consul General to the Republic of Haiti. New York merchants oppose the appointment on grounds that Douglass likely will hamper their efforts to squeeze degrading concessions out of the Haitians, as majority-white-skinned nations are then doing to majority-dark-skinned nations all over the globe.