In an 1886 newspaper interview, however, Bruce says that he gained his freedom by moving to Kansas as soon as hostilities broke out in the Civil War.

[5] He later was elected to other county positions, including tax collector and supervisor of education, while he also edited a local newspaper.

The presidential nominee that year was Ohio's James A. Garfield, who narrowly won election over the Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock.

[7] In early 1889, politically connected blacks lobbied for Bruce to receive a Cabinet appointment in the Harrison Administration.

A Philadelphia newspaper reported his appointment in 1890,[9] but persistent claims that his salary was $30,000 a year are not substantiated by any primary records.

[10] He was a participant in the March 5, 1897 meeting to celebrate the memory of Frederick Douglass and the American Negro Academy led by Alexander Crummell.

[11] He was appointed as Register of the Treasury a second time in 1897 by President William McKinley and served until his death from diabetes complications in 1898.

[12] On June 24, 1878, Bruce married Josephine Beall Willson (1853–1923), a fair-skinned socialite of Cleveland, Ohio, amid great publicity; the couple traveled to Europe for a four-month honeymoon.

[17] Lawrence Otis Graham authored a historical book about Bruce titled The True Story of America's First Black Dynasty: The Senator and the Socialite in June 2006.