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citizen. I am not drawing on my fund of influence at all. A simple
citizen may express a desire with all propriety, in the matter of a
recommendation to office, and so I beg permission to hope that you will
retain Mr. Douglass in his present office of Marshall of the District of
Columbia, if such a course will not clash with your own preferences or
with the expediencies and interest of your administration. I offer this
petition with peculiar pleasure and strong desire, because I so honor
this man's high and blemishless character and so admire his brave, long
crusade for the liberties and elevation of his race.
He is a personal friend of mine, but that is nothing to the point, his
history would move me to say these things without that, and I feel them
too.
With great respect
I am, General,
Yours truly,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Clemens would go out of his way any time to grant favor to the
colored race. His childhood associations were partly accountable
for this, but he also felt that the white man owed the negro a debt
for generations of enforced bondage. He would lecture any time in a
colored church, when he would as likely as not refuse point-blank to
speak for a white congregation. Once, in Elmira, he received a
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