But their misfortune was that they had assumed a responsibility which could be successfully discharged only by men of extraordinary endowments.

If any considerable number of them had been gifted in a high degree as orators, they would have had great advantages among a people who rate mere eloquence above its true value.
If any of them had been men of large fortune (invested in Southern property), and able to make lavish expenditure, they could have produced a deep impression upon a people more given to admiration of mere wealth than the people of the North.

But of the entire list of Republican senators and representatives from the reconstructed States, there was not one who was regarded as exceptionally eloquent or exceptionally rich; and hence they were compelled to enter the contest without personal prestige, without adventitious aid of any kind.

They were doomed to a hopeless struggle against the influence, the traditions, the hatred of a large majority of the white men of the South.
The Fifteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution, now pending and about to be adopted, would confirm the colored man's elective franchise and add the right of holding office.

One of the senators just admitted from Mississippi in advance of the ratification of the amendment (Hiram R.Revels) was a colored man of respectable character and intelligence.