He was one of the most brilliant and successful members of the bar in southern Mississippi.

Captain Thomas W.Hunt, of Jefferson County, was a member of one of the oldest, best, and most influential families of the South.

The family connections were not, however, confined to the South; George Hunt Pendelton of Ohio, for instance, who was the Democratic candidate for Vice-President of the United States on the ticket with McClellan, in 1864, and who was later one of the United States Senators from Ohio, was a member of the same family.
While the colored men held the key to the situation, the white men knew that the colored men had no desire to rule or dominate even the Republican party.

All the colored men wanted and demanded was a voice in the government under which they lived, and to the support of which they contributed, and to have a small, but fair, and reasonable proportion of the positions that were at the disposal of the voters of the State and of the administration.
While the colored men did not look with favor upon a political alliance with the poor whites, it must be admitted that, with very few exceptions, that class of whites did not seek, and did not seem to desire such an alliance.

For this there were several well-defined reasons.
In the first place, while the primary object of importing slaves into that section was to secure labor for the cultivation of cotton, the slave was soon found to be an apt pupil in other lines of industry.