A RAILROAD INCIDENT IN WASHINGTON.
A few mornings since, about half past five o'clock, I went to the depot, in this city, to leave my letters tor the North. While standing in the ticket office, a neatly dressed young man, in the blue coat of a sailor, and with a frank, manly countenance entered the office, and laid down his money for a ticket to Baltimore.
‘Have you got your free papers?’ said Mr. Stettinius, the master of the depot, if that be his proper title.
‘Papers! yes to be sure !’ and the tar pulled out his honorable discharge from the naval service of the United States, dated a few days before.
‘That won't do,’ said the ticket seller, in imperious tones, ‘you must have a magistrate's certificate that you are FREE.’
‘Free ! Why, I always was, and it's only a few days, as you may see, since I was discharged from the Navy at New York.’
‘No matter : you must go and get your pass.’
‘But I must be in New York to-night. It's now almost time to start, and what shall I do; I can't find a magistrate?’
‘Why, you can't go to Baltimore, that's all.’
The poor fellow turned away with an indignant countenance, to go a mile to hunt up a sleepy justice to endorse his papers.
What was the matter? does the reader ask. That sailor was not quite so white as the bronzed ticket seller!
‘They are not so careful about those who are going South,’ said a laboring white man, who looked on with a flowing eye.
This is only one little instance of the petty despotism exercised upon free men, free sailors, too, in the Capitol of their own free government.
CHARLES T . TORREY.
May 17, 1842.
Charter Oak, Vol. V, No. 3, September 1842.
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As the born-abroad son of decorated military man, I am a “natural born Citizen” of the US. Yet, for the first time recently, I was asked to present my U.S. Passport to have a surgical procedure.
#PastIsNotPast #EndTheChaos #HonorVeterans #HonorVeteranFamilies