John Mercer Langston: Educator and Statesman

John Mercer Langston: Educator and Statesman

People across the world have been drawn to Oberlin, a modest Ohio town, for many reasons: its culturally diverse and active community, its innovative College, and, notably, opportunities many people of color did not have elsewhere. Although the permanent home of some, Oberlin is but a temporary destination for many and, as a result, its influence expands far beyond a small region of Ohio. This was, after all, the original intention of the town and College’s founders, Philo Stewart and John Jay Shepherd. They imagined a college and community that would, through intellectual and manual labor, religious devotion, and kindness for others, establish an unshakable moral foundation in its residents and equip them with the tools necessary to make meaningful use of their righteous adamence. The founders intended that, after students’ time in Oberlin, they would travel throughout the world as missionaries, literal and metaphorical, that would, through whatever trade, religious or secular, teach forward the principles they learned in Oberlin. John Mercer Langston, although not a literal missionary, spread values as a missionary would. Through his countless achievements, John Mercer Langston stands as one of Oberlin’s foremost “missionaries”, promoting equality across the country as both an educator and a politician.

Early Years:

John Mercer Langston was born a freeman on the 14th of December, 1829 in Louisa County, Virginia. His parents were Captain Ralph Quarles, a wealthy white plantation owner who had owned Langston’s mother, Lucy Langston, as a slave. A complicated relationship, to which Lucy’s initial willingness is unknown, began between the two. Captain Quarles emancipated Lucy Langston and their daughter in 1806. Lucy, freed, went on to begin a different family and have three more children. Within nine years, she and Quarles renewed what would eventually become an open relationship and had three more sons. John Mercer would be their youngest child. Unlike most slave owners who fathered mixed race children, John’s father did his best to educate their children and ensure that his three sons would inherit his estate after his death. Just after Quarles finalized his will, both he and Lucy Langston passed away, leaving behind four-year-old John and his older siblings.

William Gooch, a trusted white neighbor and friend of Captain Quarles, took John Mercer into his care. Gooch had heard of opportunities for work and education in the free state of Ohio and brought John with him when he moved to Chillicothe in late 1834. John essentially became a member of the Gooch family and “he did not know that he had a drop of colored blood in his veins”, remarked the family’s pastor (Cheek 35). During John’s first few years in Chillicothe, he was homeschooled by Gooch’s wife, Virginia, and enrolled in the public school of Chillicothe at the age of seven, a privilege many black children did not have. When John was nine, the Gooch family decided to move out west and was unable to take John with them. He was sent to live with Richard Long, an abolitionist who had bought Gooch’s Chillicothe farm. 

John left the Long family to live in a Cincinnati boarding house in late 1840. Cincinnati, a river’s width away from the slave-state of Kentucky, was an adjustment as it was a race-conscious city and Langston had been raised without feeling different from the people with whom he lived. In Cincinnati, the strains placed on him because of his race were challenging, even more so after having lived for so long in the isolated and nurturing environment of the Gooch estate. Accustomed to his social and educational privileges, John developed an acute sense of the injustice of the black American experience at the sight of their swift evaporation in Cincinnati; his time there “had left him little ground to doubt that black people, afforded half a chance, could earn their way and justify their claim to full citizenship rights in American society” (Cheek 73).

To John, however, the mountain of injustice faced by black Americans was not insurmountable. Cincinnati had a strong abolitionist community, showing John that the stains of racial injustice were not invisible to all. The abolitionists that he encountered in Cincinnati inspired and made a lasting impression on him. In fact, he remained in touch with them after leaving Cincinnati and returning to Chillicothe in 1843, at the age of thirteen. As a result of these early experiences, John gained a strong awareness and commitment to justice.

The Oberlin Years:

In March 1844, at the age of fourteen, Langston arrived in Oberlin to attend the preparatory department of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute. His brothers had recently become the first African Americans enrolled at the College. From the start, the preparatory students were taught political ideologies rooted in abolitionist and republican values.

Oberlin nurtured Langston’s strong sense of justice and injustice that he developed throughout his youth. For Langston, Oberlin transformed justice from a mere political concept into a moral one. In his first visit to Oberlin, John attended a sermon of Charles Grandison Finney, the firebrand evangelist from Upstate New York, at the First Church, an awe-inspiring structure that

was, at the time, the largest church in Ohio. Finney ardently preached Christian perfectionism, the belief that all are capable of becoming sinless like God. Perfectionist doctrine rested strongly on a sense ability and duty, which Finney and, to a larger extent, Oberlin engrained in Langston. As a rational and free agent made by God, Langston began to believe that he was capable of anything, from salvation to perfection, if he only worked for it. At the same time, his ability to achieve anything did not leave him feeling as if he could do anything he, personally, pleased. He believed that, as free man, he had the responsibility to improve the world and make wrong right; just as Finney proclaimed in his sermon that day, people must concentrate their efforts on the present and “at being useful in the highest degree possible” (Cheek 91).

Langston’s newfound sense of moral duty, coupled with his increasing frustration with the injustice of the black American experience, led him to take responsibility for the advancement of the black race into his own hands. Langston felt the pressure of carrying “the honor of the whole African race upon [his] shoulders” (Cheek 95). He was representative of a culture, and his personal success or failure was seen by some as reflecting the progress of the African American race as a whole. After his time in the preparatory department, Langston continued his education at Oberlin College, where he refined his writing and speaking, preparing him to lead the fight for black liberation. Langston first publicly fought for black liberation in 1849 when he participated at the state black convention and denounced the limitations American society had placed on African Americans. Langston continued the practice of orating, proselytizing for the rights of all in numerous conventions.

Towards the end of Langston’s collegiate career, he decided to become a lawyer in order to fulfill his desire to fight for both his own rights and the rights of African Americans. He vowed to remain true to his race and to fulfill his obligation toward them. At this time, however, only three African Americans were practicing law professionals, and they reside

d on the East Coast. Langston was unable to gain admission to law school because of his race. Undeterred, Langston channeled his energies and ideas into black protest and reform, centering his efforts on the Ohio black convention: “Operating on several levels, the conventions offered those who attended certain political, psychological, and social benefits” (Cheek 314). The movement embraced a combination of Christian, republican, and abolitionist values, and emphasized a philosophy of self-reliance.

 

Within the reform movement, Langston proposed the enfranchisement campaign of the Ohio Colored American League. After approving the league, black Ohioans elected Langston as their recording secretary and agent for southern Ohio in 1850. Langston argued that Ohio’s oppressive legislation and practice of segregation in both civil and social institutions prevented African Americans from holding a “more elevated, intelligent and refined” position in society (Cheek 156). Langston aligned himself with Frederick Douglass’s ideology and the two prominent abolitionists went on a speaking tour together.

 

Around this time, Langston began to focus more on black liberation within the United States and less on black nationality achieved through emigration. On the 12th of September, 1850, Congress approved the Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed slave catchers to seek and return escaped slaves to their owners. The law also required all citizens to assist slave catchers whether or not they were in a free state. Many abolitionists vowed that they would rather see the nation “shattered into a thousand fragments” than submit to an oppressive and unjust law (Cheek 171). Many northern Ohio activists, black and white alike, committed themselves to encouraging people to escape slavery and to protecting them from recapture. Langston noted that, “no enactment ever given birth to by the American Congress has ever created so much dissatisfaction and excitement as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850” (Cheek 172). Langston called for African Americans to be as politically active as possible with the hope that their joint activism would make a difference.

Meanwhile, Langston was still struggling to gain acceptance to law school or attain a job in a law office. An Oberlin professor encouraged him to enter the department of theology, which had never graduated a black student. It was an opportunity for both Langston and Oberlin to achieve a racial breakthrough, as well as good training for a law career. In 1850, Langston became the first African American admitted to theological studies at Oberlin College. He managed to simultaneously excel at his studies and increase his involvement in the abolitionist and black civil rights movements.

Langston continued to speak at many conventions and gained a large and enthusiastic following. By the age of twenty-three, Langston had worked his way to the national black platform as well as into the good graces of black abolitionists from a variety of backgrounds due to his upbringing, experience, ability, and personal qualities. Langston graduated from the Oberlin theological department in 1853, and had “adopted the law as his profession” by July of that same year (Cheek 226).

In late March of 1854, Langston purchased a farm in Brownhelm township, becoming the first African American to live in Brownhelm, Ohio. Six months later, he passed the bar exam, the first African American in the State of Ohio to have done so, and was soon approached by a local lawyer who asked him to work with him on one of his cases. Before long, people, black and white, who had violated liquor laws sought out Langston to serve as their legal counsel and he gained a reputation as the area’s criminal lawyer. Within a year after his first case, Langston was engaged full-time in practicing the law. In late 1854, riding the high of his success, he decided the time had come for him to marry. He soon fell in love with Caroline Wall, a strong-minded, independent woman of mixed heritage who had also been educated at Oberlin College. The two wed in October of 1854.

In April 1855, Langston was nominated and subsequently elected as Brownhelm Township clerk, becoming one of the first African Americans elected to public office by popular vote in the United States. With this victory, Langston realized his dreams of success were attainable. He also grew more hopeful of African Americans winning freedom and justice within the United States.

In 1856, Langston, his wife, and newborn child moved back to Oberlin to begin their life as a family. In the next few years, Langston continued his work with the Republican Party, acting as a key organizer, focusing their anti-slavery platform on the territories. The new challenge was to shift the party’s focus to supporting black enfranchisement in addition to abolition. His central argument was that black and white Americans must unite against the common enemy that is slavery. He would later address the state legislature at the 1857 convention in Columbus, arguing that black enfranchisement and equal treatment were founded on the, “inherent rights’ of manhood and on American citizenship” (Cheek 323).

Langston’s calls seemed to fall on deaf ears as Anson Dayton was appointed deputy U.S. marshal by Matthew Johnson, a supporter of the Fugitive Slave Act. Dayton had lost to Langston in the 1855 election for the Brownhelm township clerk position; Dayton resented his loss to an African American competitor. Langston and other Oberlin reform leaders feared that Dayton would seek revenge by enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law. By late summer of 1858, Dayton confirmed their unease by trying to capture fugitive slaves in Oberlin.

Dayton joined forces with a slave-hunter from Kentucky, who enlisted the help of three others, and embarked on a mission to catch fugitive slaves. On September 13, they captured John Price, a fugitive who was lodging with an Oberlin resident on the outskirts of town. They were followed out to Wellington by a number of Oberlinians, who gathered outside the inn where Price was being held. Several hundred residents were present, including thirty to forty black men and a few white students who were armed. Deputy Marshal Jacob Lowe of Columbus attempted negotiations with Langston’s brother but to no avail. A band of men stormed the inn, successfully rescuing Price from capture.

Langston, upon returning to Oberlin that evening from business and hearing the news, set out for Wellington where he found the abolitionists victorious. Langston declared that the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue marked, “at once the darkest and brightest day in the Calendar of Oberlin” (Cheek 319). The rescue greatly heightened social tensions and remains one of the most impactful slave rescue cases of the 1850s, injecting “new emotional fervor into the antislavery movement” and “the Ohio black movement” (Cheek 320).

In the aftermath of the rescue, Langston’s skill and confidence as an orator became more pronounced, a factor that contributed to his growing reputation in white communities. He shared the stage with prominent white politicians, and was applauded even by white audiences. Langston began to feel a greater sense of belonging, which helped embolden his hope for the freedom of all Black Americans. He predicted that “black men and white men fighting together in defense of Christian Republican values would overthrow the Slave Power, and in the process, bring deliverance to slave and free, black and white alike” (Cheek 342).

Soon after the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue of 1858, John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry shook the nation. John Brown’s son had come to Oberlin to recruit for the raid, and actively sought the assistance of Langston. How much he offered, if any, is unknown, but he did host a meeting at his home regarding Brown’s plans. Brown’s raid marked the beginning of a new era in “anti-slavery agitation,” an era in which Langston continued to play a significant role. Langston spoke on behalf of the Ohio State Anti-Slavery Society, proclaiming that “we most cheerfully approve the manly, the heroic, the patriotic, and the Christian course pursued by the noble and Christ-like John Brown and his compatriots” (Cheek 359). On the date of Brown’s execution, December 2, 1859, ceremonies in solidarity with John Brown and his anti-slavery cause were conducted throughout Ohio. Langston saw this widespread support as evidence that the public had increased its moral awareness; thus, Langston grew ever more confident in the abolition movement.

In 1860, Langston fully committed himself to Republican success and to Abraham Lincoln, who became the presidential nominee. Two years prior to the Civil War, Langston predicted that the North could, “not succeed in conquering the slave oligarchy unless it accepted the services of the Negro” (Cheek 383). Langston worked to build a united front that would be powerful enough to dismantle the institution of slavery. During the war, he helped solidify a pro-Union party of Republicans and War Democrats in Lorain County. Langston argued that abolition must be the goal of any militant struggle, in order to give the fight a moral purpose. He rallied his followers by declaring, “The cause of the Union is the cause of God and humanity; the cause of liberty both to the slave and the freeman; to the white and to the black man” (Cheek 387).

Langston applauded the Emancipation Proclamation because it established that the war was waged against slavery. After the Massachusetts governor established a black volunteer army regiment in January of 1863, Langston worked to recruit men for other regiments throughout Massachusetts. Regiments continued to pop up throughout the north. Langston fought to allow African Americans to serve in Ohio regiments, but the governor refused, citing a lack of need to which Langston replied, “when you need us, send for us” (Washington 2-3). The governor later allowed African Americans to serve when a shortage of men threatened the need for a draft of white men. In November, Ohio’s own black regiment was complete. Five thousand African American troops stormed Richmond on April 3, 1865 and one week later, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. Langston’s long dream of victory was now a reality.

Not long after completing his work for the war effort, Langston channeled his energy into reconstruction. His ideas represented those of the northern black leadership, as well as of many white radicals. He wanted an, “entire national regeneration [based upon the] total abolition of slavery and the enfranchisement of the Negro race” (Cheek 418). The core focus was legal and political recognition and equality of African Americans. This radiated out into ideas of black self-help and solidarity, interracial cooperation, and some government assistance.

Langston continued his career as an orator, taking any opportunity to speak about emancipation and enfranchisement. At the 1864 National Convention of Colored Men, Langston spoke about his “blueprint” for reconstruction. He assisted in the creation of the National Equal Rights League, which encouraged black self-improvement and helped African Americans attain full citizenship. Langston was nominated president of the League, thus establishing him as a national leader. “Professionally, socially, politically, and personally, he exemplified an American nationalism that embodied both pride in race and faith in the ideals of the Declaration of Independence” (Cheek, 435). Langston did not disappoint. Throughout the 1860s, John Mercer Langston dedicated his efforts to ensuring African Americans achieve full equality under American law, working tirelessly for a cause he wholeheartedly believed in.

Work for the Freedmen’s Bureau:

Despite the vast changes in lives of many black Americans after the Civil War, Langston remained in his daily legal routine; the Civil War had brought little change to his own life and, in many ways, he was content with that. Others, however, were not. In 1866, the father and sister of a local white soldier approached him. They told him of their loved one who went off to war and how, through unfortunate circumstances, he had been dubiously charged and hurriedly tried for theft. After having been found guilty in a trial riddled with errors and inconsistencies, he had been left to rot in jail, unable to return home despite the war’s end. Langston heard their cries; he examined the case and, after discovering the unjust nature of the family’s circumstances, committed himself to solving their predicament. He soon determined that this case would require him to travel to the Capital and request an audience with President Johnson.

Langston left believing his grand excursion would be but a momentary disruption to his meticulously planned Oberlin life; after his trip to Washington D.C., however, he soon knew otherwise. Through patient diligence, Langston gained an audience with President Johnson. After passionately arguing for the soldier’s case, he secured his release. President Johnson was so impressed with the time and care he put into the case of a man he had never met but still believed to have been wronged that he wrote a letter of recommendation to Chief Justice Chase on Langston’s behalf. The Chief Justice, in turn, introduced him to General Oliver Otis Howard, Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, or the Freedmen’s Bureau as it was commonly called. 

Formed in December 1865, the Freedman’s Bureau was responsible for rebuilding southern society in the aftermath of the social and economic destruction of the Civil War. In the process of rebuilding, the Bureau’s main goal was to ensure that newly freed slaves would not be poor, uneducated, landless laborers but full citizens of the nation in every sense. Langston was immediately struck with the General’s kindness and devotion and General Howard was immediately struck by the same qualities in Langston. The two developed a friendship and, upon Langston’s call home, General Howard informed him that he may soon require his assistance in the business of the Bureau; if so, General Howard remarked, Langston’s duty to the Nation would require he answer the call.

The call came soon after Langston returned; General Howard requested that he become the General Inspector of the Freedmen’s Bureau. As General Inspector, Langston was to travel throughout the South to the communities of the newly freed people. While there, Langston was to instill the virtues necessary for the assent of black people from slavery to citizenry. Langston was to be, in the fullest sense, a missionary of the values of Oberlin. And, like Charles Finney before him, he was not to be a stationary pastor but a mobile crusader; he was to bring Oberlin to them.

Both Langston and General Howard were aware that, in many places, freed slaves lacked the means to reach the goals Langston was to set them on the path to. As a result, Langston, as General Inspector, was to observe and report any deficiencies in the resources available to slaves and the general efforts of the Bureau. Both were also aware of the dangers Langston faced as a free black in the embittered South. Despite this, Langston took on all challenges he faced. He began his duties with an introductory tour of Maryland and Virginia; after which, he toured nearly every Southern state.

Langston called on the freed people to make themselves useful, just as Finney had called on him. And, according to Langston, this required him to instill an appreciation for learning and labor (which, incidentally, remains the motto of the College to this day). He encouraged black people of the South to educate themselves and their children as means to, not only self-improvement, but the advancement of the race as a whole. In addition, Langston promoted the economic status and productivity of the freed people, inspiring them to take on trades and other means of economic success. He instilled disgust for and abstinence from worldly excess, including alcohol, tobacco, and material indulgence. The lifestyle Langston promoted is undeniably the same practiced in Oberlin from its first days. The Oberlin Covenant, a contract signed by all Oberlin settlers in the first years after founding that outlined the rules to govern the Colony, contains many of the same rules by which Langston called on the newly freed slaves to live. Through his work he became known throughout the country for his oratory, conviction, and diligence, catapulting him again to the national stage.

Work for Howard University and the Virginia Institute:

After having served the Freedmen’s Bureau as General Inspector, General Howard invited Langston to Howard University in Washington D.C. The school had been founded by its namesake while working in the Bureau in order to ensure the nation’s new black citizens had access to higher education; the university, from the beginning, had committed itself to the equal treatment of all by admitting students regardless of color and gender. This commitment to equal access and education as a means of affirmative action along with the university’s attachment to his mentor kindled Langston’s interest. After confirming Langston’s curiosity, General Howard, then President of his namesake institution, commissioned him to found and lead a new law department for the university. The opportunity likely intrigued Langston who had been missing his legal practice during his time working for the Freedmen’s Bureau but who still wanted to fight injustice on the largest possible scale. Langston accepted the invitation. The Board of Trustees were eager to invite Langston to the university, but problems arose when they discovered that Langston was not a member of an evangelical Church, a requirement to join the university at the time. The Board, invigorated by Langston’s experience and enthusiasm, unanimously waived the requirement; soon thereafter, Langston rushed to work after the law department was formally founded in January 1869.

Langston quickly recruited a corps of devoted professors, black and white, to teach aspiring young minds. He crafted the curriculum to guarantee his students would, upon their graduation, be able to reach out to the greatest number possible and alter the world for the better in whatever way they wished; they were to learn to be useful. This required the curriculum go beyond the legal intricacies and subdisciplines; Langston emphasized reading, writing, and, notably, speaking, believing all three necessary tools to reach out to whomever one encountered, especially those with whom you disagree, as Langston had precariously learned in unwelcoming Southern communities.

His approach was successful; the school grew in prestige and students. As this continued, more and more white students came to study law. The first class to graduate was the first legal class in the nation to include students of color and women. President Howard noted his success and, when he needed to attend an immediate military affair and temporarily could not serve as president, he proposed to the trustees that Langston be made Vice-President of the university and, therefore, Acting President in his absence. 

As Acting President, Howard University continued to grow while maintaining financial security. Langston became known and respected by students who often found him when in need of a sympathetic ear. After two years of service, it appeared that General Howard would be unable to return as President. Langston resigned his post as Acting President and proposed an election. He soon found his own name nominated without any of his own effort. All trustees of color voted for Langston with none of the white trustees following suit. Despite his great success leading the law department and the university, he was not immune to racial prejudice, even in an accepting environment like Howard. After having almost achieved the presidency, Langston believed his time at Howard had been complete and should come to an end.

While serving as Acting President of Howard University, he had made a name for himself as an able administrator. As the law department’s students traveled throughout the country, often into important government positions, they carried Langston’s name with them, making him known throughout the vast federal bureaucracy. Both of these factors led to government positions that occupied the portions of his life that he devoted to neither education nor politics. While still serving as President of Howard University and for some time thereafter, Langston was appointed to the Board of Health for the District of Columbia. In 1877 President Hayes appointed him Minister to Haiti, a historically black nation whose relations with the United States could likely benefit from a black, boundary-pushing diplomat, or at least Hayes felt.

In 1885 he returned to the United States and was invited by the members of the Virginia Legislature, who had likely learned of his name while he was working for the Freedman’s Bureau and of his success at Howard University, to become President of the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, founded only a short time before Langston’s arrival. The school had been founded by the Republican legislature to educate the freed people of the South, a task whose challenges Langston understood well. The Institute, although founded, had yet to be fully organized and its growth was one of many difficult tasks that lay before him.

The organization of the Institute in its early years was difficult even without the obstruction and intimidation of Virginia officials who wished to ensure black people remain an uneducated and, therefore, politically passive people. Langston worked to establish respect for the institute among prospective students and political officials by having all students, black and white, men and women, demonstrate the effectiveness of their education in the way Langston knew best, oratorically. As president, he personally oversaw students’ education in the Book of Proverbs, a text Langston found useful in trying times, and tasked them with writing essays to be delivered publicly in ceremonies that included both students studying at the institute, and prominent, and, likely, skeptical, members of Virginia’s upper class. These frequent ceremonies improved the morale of the institute and ensured, at least for now, that it had the support of the state.

Langston went above and beyond his duties as president. His influence reached across the state when he established a summer school for secondary school teachers. The Teacher’s Institute, as it was called, trained teachers in the effective dissemination of knowledge to their pupils and instructed them on maintaining order and behavioral standards in the classroom. Attendance at the Teacher’s Institute was soon required for the teachers of all “colored schools” in the state. Langston eased the pressure placed on black educators by the unsupportive state.

After the state government fell into Democratic hands, Langston soon found his job under pressure. Although many weren’t openly hostile to the school because of the good name it had developed under Langston’s tenure, Virginia’s educational leaders refused black administrators the same respect given to white ones. State officials became critical of Langston in particular after he openly condemned the new conduct of the state and expressed his support for state Republicans. Langston, frustrated, left the school in 1887 after concluding his absence would have no negative impact on school itself.

Running for Congress:

After having resigned the presidency, Langston was approached by a group of men just before he was about to leave the state. The men were Republican leaders from across the Fourth Congressional District of Virginia, which contained Langston’s birthplace, Louisa County, who wished to ask Langston to consider running for the Republican nomination for the district’s congressional seat. He was well known for his leadership in education and defense of Republican principles after the Democratic government take-over. As such, they expressed their belief that capturing the nomination of the Republican Party would be easy; his election, thereafter, would be guaranteed as the Fourth Congressional District was overwhelmingly Republican. Langston committed himself to exploring the idea, at first by testing the political waters. He canvassed extensively, giving speeches throughout the large, dispersed population of the district. He made his first political move when he sought nomination to be a delegate at the 1888 national convention in Chicago to name a presidential nominee for the Republican ticket. Here, the ease with which political success in the district would come to him was soon questioned by the controversy and opposition organized by General William Mahone. General Mahone was chairman of the Republican Executive Committee and a resident of the Fourth District. Upon learning that a local convention was planning on nominating Langston, a person of color, as a delegate to the national convention, he worked to ensure that he would not be elected to office, even if it required illegal tactics. General Mahone, working with the presiding officer, purged the convention’s delegation of those he believed could be swayed to Langston’s camp. General Mahone’s action’s became public and the remaining delegates, furious that Langston’s supporters had been purged from the rolls, expressed their enthusiastic support for him.

General Mahone’s efforts to prevent his nomination to the national convention failed in the end, but he continued to oppose Langston’s congressional nomination. While Langston was attending the national convention, General Mahone organized of meeting of local Republican leaders in his home. They promised each other that they would actively work against the nomination and election of any person of color. They agreed to work with Democrats to oppose Langston and, if he did receive the nomination, support the Democratic candidate if necessary. To prevent his nomination, the conspirators planned to use the power of their party positions against him. They planned to prevent the orderly assembly of Republican voters to the polls and, if not possible, they planned to create disorder and forge inconsistencies to question the legality of the results. When electoral disputes liked the ones planned occurred, it was up to the Chairman of the Republican Executive Committee, who was, at the time, General Mahone, to resolve them, ensuring whatever ruling produced would be unfavorable to Langston. This demanding and devious plan was devised solely because Langston was a person of color; as Langston said of himself in the third person: “no account whatever was taken of his qualifications, his accomplishments, his record in public and private life; his reputation and success as a scholar, a professor and president in at least two foremost colleges; as founder and dean of the law department of Howard University; as an office-holder of large diversified experience; a representative of his nation abroad in high and important diplomatic and consular capacity. No account was made of the learning, skill and success which marked his labors in these various capacities, and on respect paid to the popular enthusiastic demand which called him now from private life to public place. All such considerations must go from naught in the presence of that prejudice against him on account of his color, which neither had sense, reason nor justice upon which to defend it.”

The general population was aware of the tactics General Mahone had used to try and prevent Langston’s nomination to the national convention and made a point to be clear, public and orderly in their proceedings, preventing the interference of General Mahone as Chairman of the Republican Executive Committee, and, therefore, protecting the integrity of the election. When the congressional convention met in Farmville, Langston was unanimously voted the nominee.

Langston, although hesitant of the challenge before him, accepted the nomination. He immediately began to canvass the district, talking to his future constituents about what was important to them. He traveled and spoke even in sections of the district he had been warned to avoid. Popular organizations throughout the district were formed to advance his election; these organizations were available to both men and women despite the fact the latter could not vote. The aggrieved Republicans put forth another, white candidate, refusing to support a nominee of color: Judge R.W. Arnold. Langston would have to overcome both the Republican defector and the Democratic nominee, Edward Venable. However, Langston’s campaigning was successful; popular support for his candidacy was vast and public.

Langston prepared extensively for election day, dispatching approximately 500 precinct monitors to observe polling conduct and report any misdeeds. He encouraged his supporters to publicly declare their support, ensuring the public was aware of the vast number of Langston’s followers in the event the tally was egregiously miscalculated. Despite his preparations, Democrats and angered Republicans successfully manipulated the election through blatantly unconstitutional practices. Separate voting lines for people of color, the base of Langston’s supporters, were used, subjecting them to undue burdens and making it more difficult and unlikely for them to cast their vote for Langston. In the event they did cast their vote, it was in a voting box separate from their white equals, making it easier to alter or destroy.

After polls closed, ballots cast were sealed and guarded by the electoral clerks, all Democrats. When votes were tallied, no witnesses or observers were present, allowing them to alter the vote as the Democratic clerks saw fit. When they were done, the ballots remained sealed and hidden from inspection. When the results were announced, it appeared Venable, the Democratic candidate, had won by only 641 votes. Langston was outraged by the conduct of the election and confident in the electorate’s support for his candidacy, leading him to decide by the day after the election that he was going to contest the results. A contested Congressional election would be reviewed by the House Committee on Contested Elections. After they reviewed the evidence and testimony of witnesses and heard arguments from both sides, they would recommend a decision to the House at large, which would then vote on the Committee’s recommendation. Langston knew immediately that the long and complex appellate process required a first rate legal team which he immediately worked to assemble. Unfortunately, however, few lawyers in the district would represent Langston out of fear for the social repercussions. After searching extensively, Langston found a man of political experience who had, however, not been admitted to the bar. Langston trained him extensively in a very short period of time; he was, ultimately, admitted to the bar and began to assemble an extensive legal team. Langston gives great credit to his counsel for their help, but ultimately keeps his identity secret, likely to protect his standing in the community.

The trial did not deter Democratic efforts against Langston. After Venable and the Democratic Congressional leadership learned that the committee sided with Langston and Venable would not take the seat, they attempted to obstruct the proceedings of the trial, working to ensure Langston would not take his seat and, if he did, he would hold it only for a brief period. Witnesses would testify for days at a time and were often asked to testify on meaningless details. Witnesses who could quickly verify Langston’s complaints were threatened and intimidated. The committee eventually forced an end to the unproductive hearings and pressed forward with deliberation. It was clear to the committee that Langston had received the overwhelming support of the district and they recommended to the House at Large that he receive the commission for the district’s seat. The Republican leadership was hesitant to bring the recommendation to a vote, worried that the motion may fail, inadvertently harming Langston’s efforts. The Republican backbenchers quickly rallied behind Langston. The motion was brought to House on September 23, 1890 and passed; Democrats left the floor in protest after realizing it would succeed. Quickly thereafter, Langston was sworn in and was even welcomed to the House by members across the aisle, congratulating him on his many accomplishments in the face of stiff opposition.

Little time remained in the Congressional session before Langston took his seat. Langston was offered a seat on the Committee on Education and voted for the controversial McKinley Tariff, but he could accomplish little else before he had to return to his District to campaign for reelection. He received the nomination of his party but once again failed to receive the support of the Mahone faction. Some claim that support for Langston faded after his vote for the McKinley Tariff, which would have raised the price of goods for struggling black families. Langston lost the election to the Democratic candidate; his loss, however, was not unique and followed a trend across the nation. Democrats gained nearly 120 seats, mostly across the South, by disenfranchising black voters. Langston considered contesting the election, but believed there was little hope of a successful appeal to the heavily Democratic Congress. He spent his last days in the lame-duck Congress urging the federal government to defend the civil and voting rights of the Nation’s black citizenry against the encroach by state governments through Jim Crow laws.

Death and Legacy:

After Langston left Congress he retired, and the spent his remaining years writing his autobiography Langston: From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol. He died on November 15, 1897 in Washington D.C. Langston’s life is a peculiar one. The privileges he had in his early life invigorated his fight for black liberation when they soon evaporated outside his protective childhood bubble. Despite this, he never fought solely for himself, but sought the advancement of all black people, especially those who could fight not fight for themselves.

 

Sources Consulted:

“African American Records: Freedmen’s Bureau.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmens-bureau. Accessed 15 Aug. 2017.

Cheek, William, and Aimee L. Cheek. John Mercer Langston and the Fight for Black Freedom: 1829-65. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1989.

Fairchild, James. Oberlin: The Colony and the College. Oberlin, OH: E. J. Goodrich, 1883.

Langston, John Mercer. From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol. New York: Arno Press Inc., 1969. Originally published 1894.

“LANGSTON, John Mercer.” US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives, history.house.gov/People/Detail?id=16682. Accessed 15 Aug. 2017.

Completed August 2017 by Isaiah Krugman of Williams College with contributions from Emily Innes, Alexandra Nicome, and Lauryn Countess of Oberlin College, and Julia Elrod of Oberlin High School

Oberlin Heritage Center, 73 ½ S. Professor Street, Oberlin OH 44074

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