Contributions of Our Early Black Congressmen, Part 2

There were 16 black men serving in Congress during the Reconstruction. The following excerpts are from Representative Alonzo J. Ransier, "...responding on February 7, 1874, to arguments raised against the constitutionality of the Bill, and commenting on the desirability of the Bill among African-Americans."

"...I quote from the Journal of the proceedings of the convention of colored men held at Columbia, South Carolina, October 18, 1871; which convention was composed of regularly elected delegates from nearly every Southern State:

"...We owe to Almighty God and the spirit of liberty and humanity that animates the great body of the people of this country the personal liberty and the rights of citizenship that we enjoy, and shall, under the promptings of duty, labor for the permanence and perfection of the institutions that have served as the great instrument of consummating this act of justice."

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