New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1877-03-16
THE APPOINTMENT or MR. DOUGLASS.

Between thirty and forty years ago young
mulatto in New Bedford, Mass, was working
upon the piers, rolling oil casks, and quite ready
to engage in any other honorable employment.
This man was a slave, fugitive from Mary
land, and by all the law OF the land he might
ut any time have been seized and carried BACK
to the involuntary servitude from which he
had escaped. He then hardly knew how TO
read or to write. BY accident he exhibited re-
markable ability as public speaker; by hard
and honest work he supplied the deficiencies
of his education and he is now about as well
known to the country as any public man III
Washington. Yesterday the President, IN
accordance with an intention previously
announced, nominated him to lucrative
position of Importance and Of great respecta-
bility-that of Marshal of the District OF
Columbia. Other cOlored men, in due time,
the President said the other day to cOlored
delegation, he should nominate for other
positions as opportunity offered, but Mr..
Frederick Douglass would take precedence, on
account of his greater age and of his having
formerly been a slave.
Not much in advance of this intelligence come
rumors that in the policy which will be pur-
w
studiously ignored, and that every effort will
be made to hold up a white mans supremacy
in the Southern States. The Democratic news
papers, those eminent friends OF the negro,
greatly shocked by these rumOrs, are getting
ready to play the part of tender-hearted ne
grophilsts and to adopt the humanitarian
principles which they have always denounced.
1t will be time enough to charge the Pres
ident with treachery to the freedman when be
has been guilty of a single act OF in
Justice, or has in any way disregarded the
laws and the Constitution by the least
discrimination in favor of the white man.
There is something extremely childish III this
presumption that man of sense will, in a
matter of the utmost Importance, behave like
fool. That the President may have his own
views concerning the policy of using the blacks
merely to preserve partisan ascendency is
probable, and every friend of the race, whether
he may belong to it or not, will rejoice III any
change which shall rescue the cOlored voters
from the second slavery into which interested
men may have betrayed them. No course will
please those who are beforehand determined
not to be pleased.
But matters do move, after all. Gradually
the traces of slavery are disappearing, and it
is becoming plain that we are to have no per-
manent caste distinctions. The adventures
who for some years have controlled large sec
tons of the South have done more than any
body else to perpetuate such distinctions by
their plan of driving the blacks IN masses to
the polls, there to vote for their drivers.
That kind of determination with the blacks
10 fha
istration; but neither do we expect it to take
from the colored voter a single political or
social right. We do not anticipate the gush-
ing show of sympathy with which certain
members Of Congress have made us familiar;
but if at the end of the coming four years the
freedmen are not found happier, more in
dustrious, and politically wiser. we shall be
much disappointed.