College. She later became an important activist. After law school, Napier had returned to Nashville, Tennessee, to set up his law practice before marriage. There he also became a successful businessman and politician. He was appointed in 1911 as Register of the Treasury in President William Howard Taft's administration and was one of four members of his "Black Cabinet". Career Together with his older brothers Gideon and Charles, John Langston became active in the abolitionist movement. He helped refugee slaves to escape to the North along the Ohio part of the Underground Railroad. In 1858 he and Charles partnered in leading the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, with John acting as president and traveling to organize local units, and Charles managing as executive secretary in Cleveland. John played a key role in the influential Oberlin–Wellington Rescue of 1858. In 1863, when the federal government approved founding of the United States Colored Troops, John Langston was appointed to recruit African Americans to fight for the Union Army. He enlisted hundreds of men for duty in the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth regiments, in addition to 800 for Ohio's first black regiment. Even before the end of the war, Langston worked for issues of black suffrage and opportunity. He believed that black men's service in the war had earned their right to vote, and that the franchise was fundamental to their creating an equal place in society. After the war, Langston was appointed inspector general for the Freedmen's Bureau, a Federal organization that assisted freed slaves and tried to oversee labor contracts in the former Confederate states during the Reconstruction era. The Bureau also ran a bank and helped establish schools for freedmen and their children. In 1864 Langston chaired the committee whose agenda was ratified by the black National Convention: they called for abolition of slavery, support of racial unity and self-help, and equality before the law. To accomplish this program, the convention founded the National Equal Rights League and elected Langston president. He served until 1868. Like the later National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded in the early 20th century, the League was based in state and local organizations. Langston traveled widely to build support. "By war's end, nine state auxiliaries had been established; some twenty months later, Langston could boast of state leagues nearly everywhere." In 1868 Langston moved to Washington, D.C., to establish and serve as the