But I hear that he is successful in the States once in rebellion. Strange that this should be said while we are harrowed by the reports of Ku-Klux outrages. Here, as in paying the national debt, Congress has been the effective power. Even the last extraordinary measure became necessary, in my judgment, to supplement his little efficiency. Had the President put into the protection of the colored people at the South half the effort and earnest will with which he maintained his San Domingo contrivance, the murderous Ku-Klux would have been driven from the field and peace assured. Nor has he ever exhibited to the colored people any true sympathy. His conduct to Frederick Douglass on his return from San Domingo is an illustration; and so also was his answer to the committee of colored fellow-citizens seeking his countenance for the pending measure of Civil Rights. Some thought him indifferent; others found him insulting. Then came his recent letter to the great meeting at Washington, May 9, 1872, called to assert these rights, where he could say nothing more than this: “I beg to assure you, however, that I sympathize most cordially in any effort to secure for all our people, of whatever race, nativity, or color, _the exercise of those rights to which every citizen should be entitled_.”[171] Of course everybody is in favor of “the rights to which every citizen should be entitled.” But what are these rights? And this meaningless juggle of words, entirely worthy of the days of Slavery, is all that is vouchsafed by a Republican President for the equal rights of his colored fellow-citizens.
I dismiss the apologies with the conclusion, that in the matters to which they invite attention his Presidency is an enormous failure.
Looking at his daily life as it becomes known through the press or conversation, his chief employment seems the dispensation of patronage, unless society is an employment. For this he is visited daily by Senators and Representatives bringing distant constituents. The Executive Mansion has become that famous “Treasury trough” described so well by an early Congressional orator:--
“Such running, such jostling, such wriggling, such clambering over one another’s backs, such squealing, because the tub is so narrow and the company is so crowded.”[172]