Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/169

Rh 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.

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 Congress—throughout the first year of the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes, there were brought prominently before the public mind the questions of reconstruction, economic, social, and political, in the North and West as well as in the South. The exploitation of the public domain in the West, the development of transcontinental railroads and other means of communication, the plea for sound money, the economic regeneration of the South, the proper adjustment of the social relations between the two races living in that section, and the readjustment of political control in the former Confederate States were the great issues upon which, during this period, the attention of the nation was focused.

In the solution of some of these problems the Negro was intimately involved. What was to be his place in the scheme