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322 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

them. The fact that I was colored and they were colored had so long made us
equal, that the contradiction now presented was too much for them. After all,
I have no blame for Sam and Garrett. They were trained in the school of
servility to believe that white men alone were entitled to be waited upon by
colored men; and the lesson taught by my presence on the "Tennessee" was
not to be learned upon the instant, without thought and experience. I refer to
the matter simply as an incident quite commonly met with in the lives of
colored men who, by their own exertions or otherwise, have happened to
occupy positions of respectability and honor. While the rank and file of our
race quote with much vehemence the doctrine of human equality, they are
often among the first to deny and denounce it in practice. Of course this is
true only of the more ignorant. Intelligence is a great leveler here as else-
where. It sees plainly the real worth of men and things, and is not easily
imposed upon by the dressed up emptiness of human pride.

With a colored man on a sleeping car as its conductor, the last to have
his bed made up at night, and the last to have his boots blacked in the morn-
ing, and the last to be served in any way, is the colored passenger. This
conduct is the homage which the black man pays to the white man's preju-
dice, and whose wishes, like a well-trained servant, he is taught to anticipate
and obey. Time, education, and circumstances are rapidly destroying these
mere color distinctions, and men will be valued in this country as well as in
others, for what they are, and for what they can do.

My appointment at the hands of President Grant to a seat in the coun-
cil—by way of eminence sometimes called the upper house of the territorial
legislature of the District of Columbia—at the time it was made, must be
taken as a signal evidence of his high sense of justice, fairness, and impar-
tiality. The colored people of the district constituted then as now about one-
third of the whole population. They were given by Gen. Grant, three
members of this legislative council—a representation more proportionate
than any that has existed since the government has passed into the hands of
commissioners, for they have all been white men.

It has sometimes been asked why I am called "Honorable." My appoint-
ment to this council must explain this, as it explains the impartiality of Gen.
Grant, though I fear it will hardly sustain this prodigious handle to my name,
as well as it does the former part of this proposition. The members of this
district council were required to be appointed by the President, with the
advice and consent of the United States Senate. This is the ground, and only
ground that I know of, upon which anybody has claimed this title for me. I
do not pretend that the foundation is a very good one, but as I have generally