Hiram R. Revels

Hiram Rhodes Revels

Hiram Rhodes Revels

Hiram Rhodes Revels (September 27, 1827 – January 16, 1901) was a veteran of the American Civil War and the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate. He represented Mississippi in 1870 and 1871. As of 2006, Revels was one of only five African Americans to have served in the United States Senate.

Biography

Revels was born free in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and was tutored by a black woman for his early education. In 1838 he went to live with his brother, Elias B. Revels, in Lincolnton, North Carolina, and was apprenticed as a barber in his brother's shop. Elias Revels died in 1841, and his widow, Mary Revels, turned over her assets to Hiram before she remarried.

He attended the Union County Quaker Seminary in Indiana, where he was the only black student, as well as a black seminary in Ohio. He attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois and served, beginning in 1845, as a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, in the Midwest, where, "At times, I met with a great deal of opposition. I was imprisoned in Missouri in 1854 for preaching the gospel to Negroes, though I was never subjected to violence" In 1845 he moved to Baltimore, Maryland where he also taught a private school.

As a chaplain Revels helped raise two black Union regiments during the Civil War in Maryland and Missouri, and fought at the battle of Vicksburg in Mississippi.[1]

In 1865 , Revels returned to his ministry and was assigned briefly to AME churches in Leavenworth, Kansas, and New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1866, he was given a permanent pastorship in Natchez, Mississippi, where he settled with his wife and five daughters, continued his ministerial work, and founded schools for black children. During Reconstruction he became active in local politics and worked closely with the Freedman's Bureau. In 1868, Revels was elected alderman in Natchez, and in 1869 he was elected to represent Adams County, in the Mississippi State Senate. On January 20, 1870, after a heated debate, Revels was elected by a vote of 81 to 15 to fill the unexpired senatorial term of Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy.

Revels's election met with strong opposition from within the Senate. Opponents argued that, according to the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, no black man was a citizen before the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868. Since election to the Senate required that the person elected have nine years' prior citizenship, they argued, Revels could not be seated, having been a citizen by law for only two years.

Supporters of Revels countered by stating that the Dred Scott decision applied only to those blacks who were of pure African blood. Revels was a mulatto, as evidenced by his light skin, so he was exempt, they said, and had been a citizen all his life. This argument prevailed, and on February 25, 1870, Revels, by a vote of 48 to 8, became the first black man ever to be seated in the United States Senate.

Revels spoke for compromise and moderation. A vigorous advocate of racial equality, Revels tried to reassure Senagors about the capability of blacks. In his maiden speech to the Senate on March 16, 1870, in a plea to reinstate the black legislators of the Georgia general assembly who had been illegally ousted by white representatives, he said, "I maintain that the past record of my race is a true index of the feelings which today animate them. They aim not to elevate themselves by sacrificing one single interest of their white fellow citizens" (Ploski 18).

He served on both the Committee on Education and Labor and the Committee on the District of Columbia. Much of the Senate's attention focused on Reconstruction issues. While Radical Republicans called for continued punishment of ex-Confederates, Revels argued for amnesty and a restoration of full citizenship. , provided they swore an oath of loyalty to the United States.

Revels's term lasted one year, to March 3, 1871. He quietly, persistently--although for the most part unsuccessfully--worked for equality. He spoke against an amendment proposed by Senator Allen G. Thurman (D-Ohio) to keep the schools of Washington, D.C., segregated. He nominated a young black man to the United States Military Academy, although he was subsequently denied admission. Revels was successful, however, in championing the cause of black workers who had been barred by their color from working at the Washington Navy Yard.

Revels was praised in the newspapers for his oratorical abilities. His conduct in the Sen- ate, along with that of the other African Americans who had been seated in the House of Rep- resentatives, also prompted a white contemporary, James G. Blaine, to say, "The colored men who took their seats in both Senate and House were as a rule studious, earnest, ambitious men, whose public conduct would be honorable to any race" (Twenty Years in Congress).

When Revels's expired term he became the first president of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Alcorn State University) in Lorman, Mississippi, where he also taught philosophy. During 1873, Revels took a leave of absence from Alcorn to serve as Mississippi's secretary of state ad interim, resigning as president of Alcorn in 1874 because of political pressure. Republican governor Adelbert Ames, a Republican and carpetbagger who led the opposing faction tried to remove Revels. However when the Redeemers took over the state, Revels was reinstated as president of Alcorn, where he remained until his retirement in 1882.

Revels remained active in his ministry. For a time, he served as editor of the Southwestern Christian Advocate and taught theology at Shaw College (now Rust College), founded in 1866 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, where Revels and his family made their home. Hiram Revels died on January 16, 1901, while attending a church conference in Aberdeen, Mississippi.

References

• William C. Harris; The Day of the Carpetbagger: Republican Reconstruction in Mississippi Louisiana State University Press, 1979
• James Haskins; Distinguished African American Political and Governmental Leaders Oryx Press. 1999. pp: 216-8.
• Reginald F. Hildebrand; The Times Were Strange and Stirring: Methodist Preachers and the Crisis of Emancipation Duke University Press, 1995
• Julius E. Thompson, Hiram Revels: A Biography (1982)

External links

• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• State Library of North Carolina
• Short biographical sketch at United States Senate site.
• Portrait and biography in Harper's Weekly February 19, 1870, page 116
• February 25, 1870 article on the seating of Hiram Revels in the United States Senate
• Cartoon featuring Hiram Revels and Jefferson Davis, published April 9, 1870, in Harper's Weekly