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332 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

planted it, and where it has stood for more than half a century; no longer
sandwiched between two slave States; no longer a contradiction to human
progress; no longer the hot-bed of slavery and the slave trade; no longer the
home of the duelist, the gambler, and the assassin; no longer the frantic parti-
san of one section of the country against the other; no longer anchored to a
dark and semi-barbarous past, but a redeemed city, beautiful to the eye and
attractive to the heart, a bond of perpetual union, an angel of peace on earth
and good will to men, a common ground upon which Americans of all races
and colors, all sections, North and South, may meet and shake hands, not over
a chasm of blood, but over a free, united, and progressive republic.'"

I have already alluded to the fact that much of the opposition to my
appointment to the office of United States Marshal of the District of
Columbia was due to the possibility of my being called to attend President
Hayes at the Executive Mansion upon state occasions, and having the honor
to introduce the guests on such occasions. I now wish to refer to reproaches
liberally showered upon me for holding the office of Marshal while denied
this distinguished honor, and to show that the complaint against me at this
point is not a well founded complaint.

1st. Because the office of United States Marshal is distinct and separate
and complete in itself, and must be accepted or refused upon its own merits.
If, when offered to any person, its duties are such as he can properly fulfill,
he may very properly accept it; or, if otherwise, he may as properly refuse
it.

2d. Because the duties of the office are clearly and strictly defined in the
law by which it was created; and because nowhere among these duties is
there any mention or intimation that the Marshal may or shall attend upon
the President of the United States at the Executive Mansion on state
occassions.

3d. Because the choice as to who shall have the honor and privilege of
such attendance upon the President belongs exclusively and reasonably to
the President himself, and that therefore no one, however distinguished, or
in whatever office, has any just cause to complain of the exercise by the
President of this right of choice, or because he is not himself chosen.
In view of these propositions, which I hold to be indisputable. I should
have presented to the country a most foolish and ridiculous figure had I, as
absurdly counseled by some of my colored friends, resigned the office of
Marshal of the District of Columbia, because President Rutherford B. Hayes,
for reasons that must have been satisfactory to his judgment, preferred some