It may or may not be true that my complexion was the cause of this departure, but no man has any right to assume that position in advance of a plain declaration to that effect by President Hayes himself.
In his autobiography, Douglass challenges the assumption that President Hayes's decision was motivated by race without direct evidence.
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More from Frederick Douglass
In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.
Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.