Long before Senator Bruce donned his senatorial toga, rioting in Mississippi had become prevalent. In fact, his own county, Bolivar, was perhaps the only one in the State which had not furnished a stage for bitter race feuds; and even this county narrowly averted a calamity. Back in the early seventies, a report gained currency that in a few days there was to be a "shooting up" in Bolivar. Guns and ammunition were being stored, and the outlook became menacing. The riot, however, was averted because Senator Bruce went personally to the controlling citizens and succeeded in arousing a strong sentiment against the threatening disorder. Bolivar County was thus enabled to boast that it had never been stained with bloodshed, and even today the memory of Senator Bruce is held in highest respect in Bolivar County.
In other sections of the State, rioting became so prevalent, especially on election days, that the returns of the elections were open to serious doubt. The United States Senate was forced to take cognizance of this condition. On Friday, March 31, 1876, a Resolution was introduced appointing a Committee "to investigate the late election in Mississippi." Senator Bruce embraced this opportunity to give a clear exposition of the condition of affairs in his State. His speech on this occasion reveals him as a broad-minded and courageous statesman free from the curse of narrow dogma and paltry aim. He began by announcing the basic principles of a democracy that will survive:
The conduct of the late election in Mississippi affected not merely the fortunes of the partisans—as the same were necessarily involved in the defeat or success of the respective parties to the contest—but put in question and jeopardy the sacred rights of the citizens; and the investigation contemplated in the pending resolution has for its object not the determination of the question whether the offices shall be held and the public affairs of the State be administered by Democrats or Republicans, but the higher and more important end, the protection in all their purity and significance of the political rights of the people and the free institutions of the country.[6]
He continued by referring to the evidence which proved that the voters of Mississippi in the "late election" had not had an actual opportunity to cast their votes:
The evidence in hand and accessible will show beyond peradventure that in many parts of the State corrupt and violent influences were brought to bear upon the registrars of voters, thus materially affecting the character of the voting or poll lists; upon the inspectors of election, prejudicially and unfairly, thereby changing the number of votes cast; and finally threats and violence were practiced directly upon the masses of voters in such measure and strength as to produce grave apprehensions for personal safety and as to deter them from the exercise of their political franchises.
It was in this speech that Senator Bruce replied to the erstwhile criticism that the Negro was a coward because he endured every kind of indignity without retaliating. Taking the prevalent view of progressive thought of the nineteenth century, he spoke as follows:
It will not accord with the laws of nature or history to brand colored people a race of cowards. On more than one historic field, beginning in 1776 and coming down to the centennial year of the Republic, they have attested in blood their courage as well as a love of liberty. I ask Senators to believe that no consideration of fear or personal danger has kept us quiet and forbearing under the provocations and wrongs that have so sorely tried our souls. But feeling kindly towards our white fellow-citizens, appreciating the good purposes and offices of the better classes, and, above all, abhorring war of races, we determined to wait until such time as an appeal to the good sense and justice of the American people could be made.[7]
This pronouncement of Senator Bruce exalting the manly virtue of patience, even in the face of grave injustices, was preeminently representative of the most highly educated Negro thought of the century in which Senator Bruce lived, and must be interpreted in terms of the philosophy of his day. If it should be objected to by some of the most highly developed Negro thought of the present day, the increasing tendency towards retaliation should be attributed partly to the American Negro's metamorphosis since the colossal struggle for that Utopian dream—a World's Democracy.