5 11/16 x 8 1/4 in. printed card (tear to lower right, repair to verso). With Chandler's facsimile signature. 

William Chandler was a Republican Senator (1887-1889) from New Hampshire who also served as the Secretary of the Navy (1882-1885). He was a vocal advocate for civil rights following Reconstruction, particularly critical of President Hayes's leniency towards the South. Here, Chandler memorializes Frederick Douglass by recalling an instance when he quoted Douglass on the Senate floor and concluding that "in high intellectual qualities, in eloquence of diction, and in moral preëminence he has been excelled by few men of any race or color."