University of Virginia Library

I am in receipt of your letter of November 10th and of
one from Mr.—under date of November 11th, in
reference to the appointment of Dr. Crum as Collector
of the Port of Charleston.

In your letter you make certain specific charges against
Dr. Crum, tending to show his unfitness in several respects
for the office sought. These charges are entitled
to the utmost consideration from me, and I shall go over
them carefully before taking any action. After making
these charges you add, as a further reason for opposition
to him, that he is a colored man, and after reciting the
misdeeds that followed carpet-bag rule and negro domination
in South Carolina, you say that "we have sworn
never again to submit to the rule of the African, and such
an appointment as that of Dr. Crum to any such office
forces us to protest unanimously against this insult to the
white blood"; and you add that you understood me to
say that I would never force a negro on such a community
as yours. Mr.—puts the objection of color first,
saying: "First, he is a colored man, and that of itself
ought to bar him from the office." In view of these last
statements, I think I ought to make clear to you why I
am concerned and pained by your making them and what
my attitude is as regards all such appointments. How
any one could have gained the idea that I had said I
would not appoint reputable and upright colored men to
office, when objection was made to them solely on account
of their color, I confess I am wholly unable to
understand. At the time of my visit to Charleston last
spring I had made, and since that time I have made, a
number of such appointments from several States in
which there is a considerable colored population. For
example, I made one such appointment in Mississippi,
and another in Alabama, shortly before my visit to
Charleston. I had at that time appointed two colored
men as judicial magistrates in the District of Columbia.
I have recently announced another such appointment for
New Orleans, and have just made one from Pennsylvania.
The great majority of my appointments in every State
have been of white men. North and South alike it has

been my sedulous endeavor to appoint only men of high
character and good capacity, whether white or black.
But it has been my consistent policy in every State
where their numbers warranted it to recognize colored
men of good repute and standing in making appointments
to office. These appointments of colored men have in
no State made more than a small proportion of the total
number of appointments. I am unable to see how I can
legitimately be asked to make an exception for South
Carolina. In South Carolina, to the four most important
positions in the State I have appointed three men and
continued in office a fourth, all of them white men—
three of them originally gold Democrats—two of them,
as I am informed, the sons of Confederate soldiers. I
have been informed by the citizens of Charleston whom I
have met that these four men represent a high grade of
public service.

I do not intend to appoint any unfit men to office. So
far as I legitimately can I shall always endeavor to pay
regard to the wishes and feelings of the people of each
locality; but I cannot consent to take the position that
the door of hope—the door of opportunity—is to be shut
upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the
grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according
to my convictions, be fundamentally wrong. If,
as you hold, the great bulk of the colored people are not
yet fit in point of character and influence to hold such
positions, it seems to me that it is worth while putting a
premium upon the effort among them to achieve the
character and standing which will fit them.

The question of "negro domination" does not enter
into the matter at all. It might as well be asserted that
when I was Governor of New York I sought to bring
about negro domination in that State because I appointed
two colored men of good character and standing to responsible
positions—one of them to a position paying a

salary twice as large as that paid in the office now under
consideration—one of them as a director of the Buffalo
Exposition. The question raised by you and Mr.—
in the statements to which I refer, is simply whether it is
to be declared that under no circumstances shall any man
of color, no matter how upright and honest, no matter
how good a citizen, no matter how fair in his dealings
with his fellows, be permitted to hold any office under
our government. I certainly cannot assume such an attitude,
and you must permit me to say that in my view it
is an attitude no man should assume, whether he looks
at it from the standpoint of the true interest of the white
men of the South or of the colored men of the South, not
to speak of any other section of the Union. It seems to
me that it is a good thing from every standpoint to let
the colored man know that if he shows in marked degree
the qualities of good citizenship—the qualities which in
a white man we feel are entitled to reward—then he will
not be cut off from all hope of similar reward.

Without any regard to what my decision may be on
the merits of this particular applicant for this particular
place, I feel that I ought to let you know clearly my attitude
on the far broader question raised by you and
Mr.—; an attitude from which I have not varied
during my term of office.