Printed Document Signed by Frederick Douglass (1 results)

No Binding. Condition: Fine. Printed document signed Fredk. Douglass, and dated April 5, 1885. Single folio leaf. Deed transferring land from Watson J. Norton to H. G. Thyson; both Washington residents; docketed, with notations in the notary public's hand. ----- Douglass was on the United States government payroll for ten years - marshal for the District of Columbia (under Rutherford B. Hayes), recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia (under James A. Garfield), and minister resident to Haiti (under Benjamin Harrison). Although his political aspirations well exceeded the offices proffered to him, Douglass, particularly as recorder, served without complaint or outward animosity. Happy for me the American people possess in large measure a proneness for acquiescence, he later attested in Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. "I was the first colored man who held the recorder office. In this, if not anything else, I have opened the gate and led the way upward for the people with whom I am identified. Douglass held the recorder post between 1881 and 1886. The duties, he said, "though specific, exacting, and imperative neither fettered my pen nor silenced my voice in the cause of my people." ----- A rare document, in fine condition, professionally matted and framed.