th of Mississippi, and Representative John R. Lynch[42]
of the same State, had all served in public office before they were
sent to Congress. Senator Revels had held several local offices in
Vicksburg, while Senator Bruce, before he came to the Senate, had been
sheriff, a member of the Mississippi levee board, and for three years
the tax collector of Bolivar County. John R. Lynch, on the other hand,
had served not only as justice of the peace, but also two terms in the
lower house of the legislature, during the latter one of which he was
the Speaker of that body. Unlike the Congressmen from Mississippi,
Nash[43] of Louisiana held office for the first time when his state
elected him a representative to Congress.

Accessible records and impartial and unbiased historians support the
contention that with a few exceptions the record of these Negro
functionaries was honorable. Corrupt government was not always the
work of the Negro. In the chapter on reconstruction in his _The Negro
in Our History_, C. G. Woodson states that local, state, and federal
administrative offices, which offered the most frequent opportunity
for corruption, were seldom held by Negroes, but rather by the local
white men and by those from the North who had come South to seek their
fortunes. In many respects selfish and sometimes lacking in
principle, these men became corrupt in several States, administering
the government for their own personal ends. "Most Negroes who have
served in the South," says he, "came out of office with honorable
records. Such service these Negroes rendered in spite of the fact that
this was not the rule in that day." New York, according to the same
authority, was dominated by the Tweed ring, and the same white men who
complained of Negro domination robbed the governments of the Southern
States of thousands of dollars after the rule of the master class was
reestablished.

NEGRO CONGRESSMEN IN ACTION

With the facts concerning the earlier experiences of these Congressmen
in public life a matter of record, attention may now be centered upon
the second aspect of the question of their capacity for public
service--namely, that of their reactions to the great public questions
of their day. Perhaps this topic may be most properly treated first by
determining what were the problems of greatest public moment during
the period in which these men were in Congress. From the year
1871--the period of service of the first Negro in Congre