Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/201

 mittee; still others reported favorably could not withstand the Congressional debate. A few that survived the whole ordeal became laws.

There were two preeminent causes for the failure of some of these bills. The Negro membership in any Congress, in the first place always an exceedingly small minority, was never a determining factor in the passage of a measure proposed by one of this particular group. Secondly, the objects of the suspicion of their party colleagues, and regarded by them as an experiment in the legislative program of the nation, these men were not generally able to secure for their measures sufficient white Republican votes. Considered from this point of view, the failure of these measures is in no wise an evidence of the lack of ability and statesmanship.

Of them, James G. Blaine, a Republican leader of fifty years ago, has spoken in a most praiseworthy manner. Conceding the right of the Negroes to sit in Congress and attesting the success of their activities there, he asserted that "they were as a rule studious, earnest, ambitious men, whose public conduct—as illustrated by Mr. Revels and Mr. Bruce in the Senate, and by Mr. Rapier, Mr. Lynch and Mr. Rainey in the House—would be honorable to any race."