ak out against the Republicans for abandoning southern blacks to the discriminatory practices of the South. Nearing the age of 60, Douglass was ready to give up his life on the road. In his undemanding job as a U.S. marshal overseeing the criminal justice system in the nation's capital, he was aided by a large staff of employees. Following his appointment, he purchased a new home in the Washington area. The 15 acre estate that he christened Cedar Hill included a 20 room house, which held a huge library and whose walls were decorated with the portraits of Abraham Lincoln, William Lloyd Garrison, Susan B. Anthony, and other people who had influenced him. His children were frequent visitors to Ceder Hill, and he greatly enjoyed playing the role of family patriarch. In 1877, Douglass traveled to St. Michaels, Maryland, to visit old friends and to see the farms and plantations where he had worked as a slave. While there, he took the opportunity to visit his old master, Thomas Auld. Aged and feeble, Auld greeted his former slave as Marshal Douglass, and the two men spoke for a long time. Auld both justified and apologized for his actions as a slaveholder. Overall, the former master and slave were able to part on good terms. After the 1880 election of the Republican candidate James Garfield as president, Douglass was appointed to the post of recorder of deeds for Washington, D.C. He liked his new job, which entailed managing the department that made records of property sales in the capital. During his five years in this position, he had ample time for his writing projects and speaking engagements. In 1881, he published the third of his autobiographical volumes, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. In August 1882, Anna Douglass died after a long illness. Douglass observed a traditional year of grieving, but he was hardly ready to settle into the life of a widower. He had never shrunk from controversy, and his next act upset both black and whit...
