Douglass at Lincoln's Inauguration
Current mood:  peaceful
Category: News and Politics

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(written Dec. 26, unpublished in local media)

A commissioned officer who works at the Pentagon said Washington, D.C. was in a “low hover” amid preparations for the January 20, 2009, inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44^th President of the United States. The eyes of the world will be focused on Obama as he takes his oath of office to become commander in chief of a nation in a world beset by war, financial crises and environmental threats. As the first African-American elected to this post, he ushers a new era of home and change for millions of other African-Americans, and for further millions throughout the world.

This inauguration has roots deep in our national history, and we are one of the few republics in the world that can boast a peaceful transition of power. On March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln delivered a short, six-minute oration that historians regard as one of his best. The weather had been rainy for weeks, and Pennsylvania Avenue was muddy with large puddles of standing water. The day started in a drizzle, but about noon, the sun broke through. Bands played patriotic songs as thousands waded through the muck.

Frederick Douglass, who had been a vocal adversary of Lincoln's, and then a trusted adviser, was among them, and he pushed to a spot where he could comfortably view the podium where President Lincoln spoke these words:

“One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. “

Lincoln's speech concluded with a memorable promise for peace:

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”

Later that evening, Lincoln's inaugural ball was getting underway at the model room of the U.S. Patent Office, and the presidential party had arrived, with Mr. Lincoln wearing a fine Brooks Brothers coat and Mrs. Lincoln making a fashion splash in a well-tailored white silk-and-lace dress with smoke blue ornamental trim. Well-coiffed guests presented their $10 tickets at the door and filed into the elaborate affair, which Douglass later described as “the perfect sea of beauty and elegance.”

Douglass arrived, and bystanders were struck by his his own noble appearance. They were also taken aback by his dark-skinned countenance, as a black man had never attended a presidential inaugural ball before. Two policemen siezed Douglass, and he argued that President Lincoln had ordered his attendance. Douglass bolted past the police, and was apprehended inside by two other guards, and led into a room. Rochester's patriot recalled the details in his autobiography:

“On the inside, I was taken charge of by two other policemen, to be conducted as I supposed to the President, but instead of that they were conducting me out the window on a plank.

'Oh,' said I, 'this will not do, gentlemen,' and as a gentleman was passing in I said to him, 'Just say to Mr. Lincoln that Fred. Douglass is at the door.'

He rushed in to President Lincoln, and almost in less than half a minute I was invited into the (room). A perfect sea of beauty and elegance, too, it was. The ladies were in very fine attire, and Mrs. Lincoln was standing there. I could not have been more than ten feet from him when Mr. Lincoln saw me; his countenance lighted up, and he said in a voice which was heard all around; 'Here comes my friend, Douglass.' “

Lincoln made this comment before highly respected Senators and Mrs. Lincoln. Later, the President would pull Douglass to the side to ask his valued opinion of the speech. Douglass deferred, nodding toward Mrs. Lincoln and saying that thousands of people wished to shake the President's hand. But Lincoln insisted, and Douglass replied, “It was a sacred effort.”

The president was very pleased that one of the most accomplished orator of the day, and perhaps of any era, liked his speech. For Frederick Douglass, Lincoln's second inauguration, post-scuffle, gave presidential sanction to his stature as the voice of the African-American in the Reconstruction era. Five weeks later, Lincoln was assassinated, and Douglass delivered one of his most eloquent orations, an impromptu eulogy in downtown Rochester at Corinthian Hall.

President-Elect Obama's inauguration will be decidedly different than Lincoln's of 144 years ago. Rochester can be proud, because in a historical sense, it was made possible in large part by the character, fortitude and vision of Frederick Douglass.

Kerry Gleason is a Rochester resident and author of a feature-length screenplay, North Star: The Life of Frederick Douglass.