The debate about immigration deeply split black leaders, for what seemed at stake was less tactics than the whole meaning of the past fifteen years. Migration meant Reconstruction had been a failure, and escape was the only hope. This Douglass was unwilling to admit, and his opposition prompted Charleton H. Tandy, who led relief efforts for the Kansas migrants, to denounce Douglass as a “fawning sycophant, who deserted his own people and toadied to those in power.”
