story,' that before the
tribunal of history the facts are not against me nor against the
colored race. I beg leave to say to the gentleman that these people
have borne themselves as bravely, as well, and, I may add, as wisely
during the great contest just closed, as any people to whom he can
point, situated in like circumstances, at any period of the world's
history. They were in chains when the rebellion broke out. They
constituted but one-sixth of the whole body of the people. By the
terms of the Constitution of the United States, if they lifted a hand
in the assertion of their right to freedom, they were liable that
moment to be crushed by the combined power of the Republic, called
out, in pursuance of the very letter of the Constitution, 'to suppress
insurrection.' Yet, notwithstanding the fact that their whole living
generation and the generations before them, running back two
centuries, had been enslaved and brutalized, reduced to the sad and
miserable condition of chattels, which, for want of a better name, we
call a 'slave'--an article of merchandise, a thing of trade, with no
acknowledged rights in the present, and denied even the hope of a
heritage in the great hereafter--yet, sir, the moment that the word
'Liberty' ran along your ranks, the moment that the word
'Emancipation' was emblazoned upon your banners, those men who, with
their ancestors, had been enslaved through five generations, rose as
one man to stand by this republic, the last hope of oppressed humanity
upon the earth, until they numbered one hundred and seventy-five
thousand arrayed in arms under your banners, doing firmly,
unshrinkingly, and defiantly their full share in securing the final
victory of our arms. I have said this much in defense of men who had
the manhood, in the hour of the nation's trial, to strike for the flag
and the unity of the republic in the tempest of the great conflict,
and to stand, where brave men only could stand, on the field of poised
battle, where the earthquake and the fire led the charge. Sir, I am
not mistaken; and the record of history to which I have referred does
not, as the gentleman affirms it does, make against me."

Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa, in reply to Mr. Chanler, said: "He [Mr.
Chanler] proceeds to say that they are now, as a class, dependent as
when they were brought from their native wilds in Africa. Sir, I
believe if the gentleman were master of all languages, if he were to
attempt to put into a sente