ursued concurrently courses in liberal arts and in
law. In January, 1879, he was admitted to practice before the Supreme
Court of his State.

THEIR PUBLIC SERVICE PRIOR TO MEMBERSHIP IN CONGRESS

Perhaps the most accurate method whereby one's capacity for the
performance of any service may be measured is that which seeks, first,
to establish the experience of the individual in the performance of
the identical or similar services, and second, to evaluate the degree
of skill with which the individual, at a given time, performs the
particular service. Regarded in this light, therefore, we subject the
Negro Congressmen to this test: As measured by their experience in
public positions of trust and confidence and by their grasp of the
great public questions at that time current, to what extent did they
show capacity for public service?

The first part of our query lends itself to solution without
difficulty. Indeed, one may with great ease establish the fact that,
with but few exceptions, these men, prior to their election to
Congress, had held public offices of honor and trust. A case in point
is that of John Mercer Langston[23] of Virginia. While never a member
of a State legislature, Langston was, nevertheless, brought often into
other public service. Indeed he early attracted attention in Ohio by
his service as a member of the Council of Oberlin and by his record in
other township offices. Langston served as dean of the Law Department
of Howard University, and in 1872 became Vice-President and Acting
President of that institution. In 1885 he became President of the
Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute. He served, moreover, as
Inspector-General of the Bureau of Freedmen, a member of the Board of
Health of the District of Columbia, Minister resident and
Consul-General to Haiti, and Charge d'Affaires to Santo Domingo. His
election to Congress, therefore, was the crowning achievement of a
lifelong public career.

Hyman,[24] O'Hara,[25] Cheatham,[26] and White,[27] all of North
Carolina, had held public office prior to their election to Congress.
Hyman and White had each been members of the State Senate, the former
for six years, from 1868 to 1874, while O'Hara and White had each
served in the lower house of the legislature. Hyman had been a
delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1868, moreover, while
O'Hara, who had also served as chairman of the Board of Commissioners
of the County of Halifax, had been a del