Page:The rising son, or, The antecedents and advancement of the colored race (IA risingsonthe00browrich).pdf/514

 seat in the senate the first colored man presenting himself for so high an office, the first to be in eminent civil service in the general government.

At last, on Friday, February 25, 1870, a day never to be forgotten, at about five o'clock, in the presence of the chamber and galleries crowded with expectant and eager spectators, the oath was administered to Hiram R. Revels, by the vice-president. Senator Wilson accompanied him to the chair, and he was at once waited upon to his seat by the sergeant-at-arms.

Saulsbury had done his best to turn backward the wheels of progress; Davis fought in vain, declaring he would "resist at every step" this unconstitutional measure, giving illustrations, dissertations, execrations, and recommendations of and for the "Negro" and his Republican friends; Stockton, in the interest of law and precedent, begged that the subject should go to the judiciary committee, but the party of freedom moved on in solid phalanx of unanimity to the historic result. Mr. Sumner, who had not taken part in the debate, raised his voice with impressiveness and power, comprehending the whole question in a short speech just before the vote.

Thus was accomplished the last important step in the National Legislature for those once enslaved, and the crowning rebuke to the Rebellion, especially as the Mississippi senator took the seat made vacant by Jefferson Davis when his treason became known to the North and to the government. After the close of his senatorial course, he was appointed President of Alcorn University, with a salary of two thousand five hundred dollars per annum, which place and its emoluments he left,—at the desire of Governor Powers, and as he