Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 137
American citizens, he is held and firmly bound to
execute the constitution of the United States in
the fullness of its spirit and in the completeness
of its letter, and thus far he has shown no disposition
to shrink from that duty.
" The Southern question is evidently the most
difficult question with which President Cleveland
will have to deal. Hard as it may be to manage
his party on the civil service question, where he
has only to deal with hungry and thirsty office
seekers, nineteen out of every twenty of whom he
must necessarily offend by failing to find desirable
places for them, he will find it incomparably
harder to meet that party's wishes in dealing with
the Southern question. There are several methods
of disposing of this Southern question open to
him, and there are lions in the way, whichever
method he may adopt.
" First, he may adopt a policy of total indifference.
He may shut his eyes to the fact that in
all of the Gulf states political rights of colored
citizens are literally stamped out; that the constitution
which he has solemnly sworn to support
and enforce is under the feet of the mob; that in
those states there is no such thing as a fair election
and an honest count. He may utterly refuse
to interfere by word or deed for the enforcement
of the constitution and for the protection of the
ballot, and let the Southern question drift whither-