The Speeches of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

Author:Frederick Douglass [Mckivigan, John R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2018-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

“Which Greeley Are We Voting For?”

An Address Delivered in Richmond, Virginia, 24 July 1872

Unidentified newspaper clipping, “Campaign of 1872,” 6:82–84, Box 95, Edward McPherson Papers, Library of Congress.

Although never an abolitionist, Horace Greeley had vigorously opposed the western expansion of slavery and championed the Republican party through his editorials in the New York Tribune, the newspaper with the nation’s largest circulation. Thus, when Greeley challenged Ulysses S. Grant in the 1872 presidential election, running on the Liberal Republican ticket, it was a serious threat to the Radical Republicans’ Reconstruction program. As a Republican party stalwart, Frederick Douglass campaigned for Grant and opposed Greeley’s rhetoric of conciliation between North and South, which entailed federal military withdrawal from the South and the abandonment of African American rights.

When the Democratic party met for its convention in Baltimore, it also nominated Greeley for president, despite his long history of attacking it, in hopes of regaining national political power. The chair of the Democratic National Committee, August Belmont, endorsed Greeley, albeit reluctantly, because he was one of the “wisest and best men of the Republican party” who had “severed themselves from the Radical wing” of the Republicans.1

Subsequent editorials in the Richmond Daily Dispatch, a Democratic party newspaper, put forth a “Lost Cause” rationale for defeating President Grant, which meant removing federal protections for African American rights in the South: “The key note of the Administration is that the continued repression of the South is necessary to the safety of the republic. The key note of the Democratic-Republican or Liberal party is that the sections must shake hands across the bloody chasm.”2

With these accusations as a backdrop, the Republican party sponsored a rally in Richmond, on 24 July, and Frederick Douglass addressed the crowd. Several “well-known Republicans” joined Douglass on the platform, and he was the first speaker to address the gathering. The Richmond Daily Dispatch described Douglass’s appearance in detail and then opined, “He spoke with ease and fluency, his gestures were appropriate, and his language well-chosen, but as an orator he does not excel several well known colored men in Virginia who were slaves until freed by the sword.” After this implicit criticism of Douglass’s courageous escape from slavery, the paper remarked that “his speech created less enthusiasm than might have been expected.”

The summary of Douglass’s speech in the Daily Dispatch downplayed the irony in his speech. For example, Douglass jokes, “I hear from several sources that all the intelligent colored people of the South are going to vote for Horace Greeley and B. Gratz Brown. (Loud cries of “No!”) Well, I hope you won’t have many such intelligent ones in Virginia. (Applause and laughter.)” The Daily Dispatch reported the latter sentence as: “If that was so, he hoped and believed there were very few intelligent colored people in Virginia. (Applause.)” Senator Henry Wilson, the Republicans’ vice presidential candidate, and several other speakers followed Douglass, and the event ended at dusk, when the crowd was supplied with Chinese lanterns for a procession that “presented a brilliant spectacle.

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