James T. Rapier[19] of Alabama, one of the really brilliant men in this group, acquired a liberal education, after which he studied law and practiced in his native State. Another member of the legal group was James E. O'Hara[20] of Enfield, North Carolina. Following his academic training which was received in New York City, O'Hara studied law, first, in North Carolina, and later at Howard University in Washington. In June, 1871, he was admitted to the bar of his State.
Two others of this group were Miller and White. The first one, Thomas E. Miller,[21] of Beaufort, South Carolina, attended the free public school for Negroes in his native city. In 1872 he was graduated from the Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Later, Miller read law, and in 1875 was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of his State. The second of these two, George Henry White[22] of North Carolina, studied first in his native State and later at Howard University. While there he pursued 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 delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1875. For the eight years from 1886 to 1894, White served as prosecuting attorney for the second judicial district of the State, while Cheatham, the fourth member of the North Carolina delegation, had held but one office, that of Register of Deeds for Vance County.
It is especially significant that each one of the Negro Reconstruction Congressmen from South Carolina, namely Cain,[28] De Large,[29] Elliott,[30] Rainey,[31] Ransier,[32] and Smalls[33] were members of the State Constitutional Convention of 1868. Two of them, Cain and Rainey, had been formerly State Senators; Smalls had served two terms in the Senate and four in the House; while each of the others had been members for one term or more in the lower branch of the legislature. Ransier, moreover, had held, prior to his election to Congress, the high office of lieutenant-governor of the State; Elliott had served as adjutant-general, and Smalls had held successively the offices of lieutenant-colonel, brigadier-general and major-general in the State militia.
Of the two South Carolinians who served in Congress after the Reconstruction, Thomas E. Miller[34] was for four terms a member of the lower chamber of the State legislature and for one term a member of the Senate. Furthermore, he was for one term a school commissioner of his county, and received also his party's nomination for the office of lieutenant-governor of the State. Indeed, of the entire South Carolina group, Murray, alone, seems to have been elected to Congress without previously having held public office.[35] Jefferson F. Long,[36] of Georgia, was not unlike Mr. Murray in that the former had never held public office. In this, his experience differed from that of Walls, of Florida, who had been a member of the Florida State Senate.
Alabama sent to Congress three Negroes, Turner,[37] Rapier,[38] and Haralson.[39] Of these men Haralson alone had had experience in the legislature prior to his election to Congress, having served in both branches of that body. Turner was elected in 1868 to the city council of Selma. Later he became tax collector of Dallas County, but because of his inability to secure honest men as assistants, resigned the office. The third member of this group, James T. Rapier, served as an assessor and later as a collector of internal revenue in his State.