[2] To this day no news has reached England of Isaaco's death, and indeed after all he survived it seems impossible that he should ever die.

[3] Isaaco was better able to appreciate their music than Mungo Park. In one item of his accounts, the latter writes: "To the native singers for singing their nonsense."

[4] It must be remembered that Isaaco was writing a government report and careful to suppress all signs of indecorum. What a heap of money one would give to possess his private, unexpurgated journal!

[5] A priest of Yaour to whom Amady Fatouma, the guide, had given a small present from Mungo Park.

[6] Mansong had sold it to Park for a quantity of firearms. It was half rotten and took eighteen days to make water-tight. Forty feet long by six broad and flat-bottomed. They christened it "His Majesty's Schooner Joliba."

COMMUNICATIONS

Mr. A. A. Taylor, who contributed the article on Negro Congressmen a Generation After in the April number, recently received from Mr. Henry A. Wallace, a participant in the Reconstruction in South Carolina, the following important letter:

326 Flower St.,
Chester, Pa.,
April 19, 1922.

Prof. A. A. Taylor,
The West Virginia Collegiate Institute, Institute, W. Va.

Dear Sir: I am still confined to the house, not having been outside since the last week of December. When we get some good sunshiny weather I will venture out. I am writing this to let you know how much I enjoyed reading your very interesting article "Negro Congressmen a Generation After," in the April number of The Journal of Negro History. This article and Dr. Woodson's "Fifty Years of Negro Citizenship as Qualified by the United States Supreme Court" are worth the subscription price to The Journal.

As your article is now in permanent form and no doubt will be quoted frequently, there are one or two little slips that I would like to invite your attention to, feeling that you, like myself, believe in accuracy.

On page 130, foot note relative to Mr. Rainey you have not included his service in the 41st Congress. He was seated in that Congress on December 12, 1870, to succeed Mr. Whittemore, who was unseated on account of a serious charge brought against him. Mr. Rainey was the first Negro Congressman. Mr. Long was seated in the same Congress, but later—January 16, 1871. This would give Mr. Rainey a record of five Congresses. On the same page (130) foot note relative to General Smalls, you have him as a member of five Congresses. My record does not show him a member of the 47th Congress. Mr. Rainey holds the record for length of service. In connection with Mr. Rainey's record I will state that he was the only one of the Negro congressmen who presided over the House of Representatives, that courtesy was extended to him by Speaker Blaine. Altho the House was democratic he was honored by the Republican caucus at one time for Clerkship of the House, showing the esteem in which he was held by his colleagues, after he retired from the House. Page 134—High Hollow Academy should be High Holborn Academy. On the same page, foot note, it is stated that Gen. Elliott resigned from Congress to accept the office of sheriff. While Gen. Elliott had his official residence in Aiken county, he and Mrs. Elliott had their home in Columbia, one of the show places of the city. I cannot conceive of him resigning the position of congressman to accept the insignificant office of sheriff of the small county of Aiken. He resigned in order to go to the House of Representatives at Columbia for the purpose of being elected Speaker of that body, and he succeeded. The other time he resigned was for the purpose of being a candidate for the U. S. Senatorship, but the Pennsylvania R. R. interests put John J. Patterson, who was a Cameron protege, over. Had he been elected sheriff of Aiken county it would have necessitated his living there.

On page 139—"From the year 1871—the period of service of the first Negro in Congress" should be 1870—Rainey, Dec. 12, 1870.

The greatest compliment I think that was ever paid to a Negro by a prominent white man was that by Benjamin F. Butler, the distinguished Union General, afterwards Governor of Massachusetts, and who had charge of Sumner's civil rights bill in the House of Representatives. In the prefatory remarks to his speech on the day following the great speech made by Gen. Elliott on the same bill, he said:

"I should have considered more at length the constitutional argument, were it not for the exhaustive presentation by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Elliott) of the law, and the only law quoted against us in this case that has been cited, to wit, the Slaughter-House cases. He, with the true instinct of freedom, with a grasp of mind that shows him to be the peer of any man on this floor, be he who he may, has given the full strength and full power of that decision of the Supreme Court."

Garfield, Cannon, Frye, Hale, Hawley, Hoar (Geo. F.), Platt, Dawes, Phelps, Lamar, Beck, Stephens (A. H.), Randall, Mills, Cox, and Barnum, were among the prominent members of the House at that time, many of whom afterwards reached the Senate, and Garfield, the presidency. General Butler was considered one of the great constitutional lawyers of that period.

The following relative to Senator Bruce and Mr. Langston may interest you if you have not already heard of the incidents:

It is always customary when a new Senator appears with his credentials for his colleague to escort him to the Vice-President's desk to be sworn in. When Senator Bruce presented himself, his colleague, Senator Alcorn, was not present. Senator Roscoe Conkling taking in the situation, walked over to Senator Bruce and escorted him up the aisle and the oath was administered. For this gracious act Senator Bruce named his son, recently of Washington, after the distinguished senator from New York.

As Mr. Venable, the democrat, was given the certificate of election by the Virginia officials for the Congressional seat, Mr. Langston made the contest. The Committee on privileges and elections voted in favor of Mr. Langston. When the time set for action on the case arrived, the whole democratic membership withdrew from the House, thinking that they would catch the Republicans napping and without a quorom, the republican majority being small. The Republicans, however, got wind of what the Democrats were doing and had all of their members rounded up. They not only seated Mr. Langston but the chairman of the elections committee took advantage of the absence of the Democrats and called up the case of Miller versus Elliott from South Carolina and then seated Miller, though the case was not slated for that time. The feelings of the Democrats can be better imagined than described when they returned to the House and found two of their colleagues unseated and two Negro Congressmen seated in their places. The Democrats never again resorted to such tactics.

Very respectfully,
Henry A. Wallace.