Year: 1868

Letter from Frederick Douglass


The career of this distinguished man
having now reached a termination
hardly less instructive than melanchO-
Iy, it becomes those who have felt the
deepest interest in his life and charac-
ter to recognize the fact of his apOstacy
and protect themselves as far as posi-
BILE from its damaging consequences,
by holding his example up to moral
indignation and earnest reprObatiOn.
The position of Mr.. Chase before the
late Democratic COnventiOn-viewed
IN connection with his early history
and the sources from which he has
mainly derived popular consideration
is certainly one of the saddest spec
tacIes which can afliict the eyes of
men.


An Abolitionist of thirty years
standing-a Liberty Party man of the
olden time, when that party could
only count seven thousand votes in
the whole cOuntry-an anti-slavery
lawyer, trusted most by the trembling
fugitive from slavery an abolition
politician and statesman; indebted for
his distinction, his high position
among his cOuntrymen, mainly to his
supposed unselfish and inhexible de-
vOtiOn to human liberty and especially
to that of the much hated negro, is
found at last in the gutter before Tam
many Hall-piteOusly imploring the
Democratic party to nominate him as
their candidate for the Presidency, ur-
ging as his chief recommendation his
ability to demOralize a sufficient num-
Der of his anti-slavery associates to
put the Government into the hands Of
the Democratic party the next four
years.


"What a fall was there, my coun-
trymenP


Here is treachery compared with
which that of Webster, Seward, Charles
Francis Adams and Andrew johnson
whitens into innocence. The fall of
Mr.. Chase is more scandalous and
shocking than that of any other of
which American history affords an eX-
ample. His descent is from a point
higher-he has fallen further-and he
reaches a depth Of infamy deeper and
hotter than of any Of his predecessors
in treachery. 1t is only few months
ago that he was seeking to win to
himself the votes Of the cOlOred men
of the South, on the ground that he
more than any other prominent man
best represented their interests and
their rights, and now he is for a party
whose chief claim to popular regard is
based upon its hostility to the negro,
and its purpose to place him in con-
dition only less wretched than the
slavery from which the war for the
Union had rescued him.


It is not many weeks since that
good man, Gerritt Smith, was vigor-
Ously pressing the name Of Chase for
the Presidency. He was evidently
surprised, if not grieved, that I was
not equally earnest in the same work.
He could not understand why should
favor the nomination and election of.
Gen. Grant in preference to Chief
Justice Chase. Mr.. Smith will have
no difficulty in understanding my pref
erence now.


The fact is, I have for many years
been troubled with doubts of this
mans anti-slavery trustworthiness.
Before Mr.. Chase had betrayed that
heroic woman, Margaret Garner, into
the hands of Kentucky slave-hunters ; !
before he deserted Mr.. Lincoln, and
sought to supplant him in 1864; be-
fore he accepted the Chief Justiceship |
as the price of the support of the sec
ond ele tion of Mr.. Lincoln before ne
manifested his inordinate desire for
the Presidency, by leaving the Treas |
urv (where- his services were most
needed by the country in order to
put himself in training for the Presi-
Dental nomination; before he framed