(On Saturday evening,' Fobruary 20, 1870, Mr,'Tlcvolb, the first) negro,.or coloured man, as those of African raco and complexion are oal%id, who ever sat M member in tho Congress, or Parlia jnont;:pf;tto United States of America, took his place in tho Senate, or. Upper House, jrliloh consists, of ninety repre sentatives, eleoted by the Legislative Assemblies of eaoji separate State to spootively to sit for Bix years, and the Representative -Assembly, or; Lower Houso, is oomposed.of 357 members, to sit for five years, who have beeri'ohosen by the citizens of each State themsolvoß. The State for which Mr. Revels was thus Beleotod was Mississippi, where tlieriver so jinmod enters the Gulf of Mexico, He was-chosen for this position by the large majority of 48 against 8, though on strictly party lines. A large assembly was present to witness his a d mission to the House. His eloction was the more remarkable because ho was the immedlato successor of Buch a distin guished man of the onposita parly as Jefferson Daviß, who liif d from June 3, 1801, till Secember G, 1880, and who was olected President of the Con federated South, aa the Southern oneß, where negroes had been slaves, were called when they attempted to separate from the Federals, or Northern ones, whioh roßulfed in the Civil War, in' which the'latter took up the popular cry, of liberation of the negroes as the chief; of its objects. As far back as December 18,18G2, .at the clobo of that strife, the' total abolition of slavery in tho United) States was officially announced as a result of the success of the Federals; but it was not until February, 1870, that, negrp equality with the whiles waß com., pletoly recognised, of which this occa sion, during that month, waa #' pre-eminent example.
