against them. While I was not insensible or indifferent to the fact that I was treading the high places of the land, I was not conscious of any unsteadiness of head or heart. I was United States Marshal by accident. I was no less Frederick Douglass, identified with a proscribed class whose perfect and practical equality with other American citizens was yet far down the steps of time. Yet I was not sorry to have this brief authority, for I rejoiced in the fact that a colored man could occupy this height. The precedent was valuable. Though the tide that carried me there might not soon again rise so high, it was something that it had once so risen and had remained up long enough to leave its mark on the point it touched and that not even the hoary locks of Time could remove it or conceal it from the eyes of mankind. The incident was valuable as showing that the sentiment of the nation was more liberal towards the colored man in proportion to its proximity, in point of time, to the war and to the period when his services were fresh in its memory, for his condition is affected by his nearness to or remoteness from the time when his services were rendered. The imperfections of memory, the multitudinous throngs of events, the fading effects of time upon the national mind, and the growing affection of the loyal nation for the late rebels, will, on the page of our national history, obscure the negro's part, though they can never blot it out entirely, nor can it be entirely forgotten.
The inauguration of President Garfield was exceptional in its surroundings. The coronation of a king could hardly have been characterized by more display of joy and satisfaction. The delight and enthusiasm of the President's friends knew no bounds. The pageant was to the last degree brilliant and memorable, and the scene became sublime when, after his grand inaugural
