running Republican officers out of town. In 1875 Democrats dominated the House of Representatives for the first time since the Civil War. Lynch introduced many bills and argued on their behalf. Perhaps his greatest effort was in the long debate supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to ban discrimination in public accommodations. He was one of seven African-American Congressmen present, who all testified in 1874 as to personal and known experience of the effects of discrimination in this area. Another speech included the following: In 1876 Lynch spoke out against the White League and racial divisions in his state. The Democratic Party dominated the state legislature, redrawing his district and guaranteeing white majorities in the other five. Lynch contested the victory of Democrat James R. Chalmers from the 6th district, but, with Congress dominated by Democrats, the Elections Committee refused to hear the case. As a result of a national Democratic Party compromise, in 1877 the federal government withdrew its troops from the South, and Reconstruction was considered ended. The Democrats kept control of the state legislature. In 1880 Lynch re-entered politics. He ran against Democrat James R. Chalmers from the 6th district and contested his claim of victory in the majority-black 6th district. When his case came before the Committee on Elections on April 27, 1882, Lynch argued that in five counties, more than 5,000 of his votes had been counted for Chalmers. He further asserted that several thousand Republican ballots had been thrown out after a secret hearing because of technicalities such as a clerical failure to send a list of names with the returns and the presence of unusual marks on the ballots. Lynch's strongest arguments were based on Chalmers's remarks that Lynch's votes had been thrown out and that he (Chalmers) was 'in favor of using every means short of violence to preserve [for] intelligent white people of Mississippi supreme control of political affairs.' The committee ruled in Lynch's favor, and on April 29, 1882, the House voted 125 to 83 to seat him; 62 Members abstained. Lynch was awarded the seat by Congress in 1882. He had little time to campaign and lost re-election in 1882 by 600 votes, ending his career in Congress. He continued to have influence in Mississippi and in the Republican Party. In 1884, Lynch became the first African American to chair a political party's National Convention. Future president Theodore