which was without
the courage to assert those rights and avenge their violation in
their behalf; with what gallantry they flung themselves upon Rebel
fortifications, meeting death as fearlessly as any other troops in the
service. But upon none of these things is reliance placed. These facts
speak to the better dispositions of the human heart; but they seem of
little weight with the opponents of impartial suffrage.

It is true that a strong plea for equal suffrage might be addressed to
the national sense of honor. Something, too, might be said of national
gratitude. A nation might well hesitate before the temptation to betray
its allies. There is something immeasurably mean, to say nothing of the
cruelty, in placing the loyal negroes of the South under the political
power of their Rebel masters. To make peace with our enemies is all well
enough; but to prefer our enemies and sacrifice our friends,--to exalt
our enemies and cast down our friends,--to clothe our enemies, who
sought the destruction of the government, with all political power, and
leave our friends powerless in their hands,--is an act which need not be
characterized here. We asked the negroes to espouse our cause, to be our
friends, to fight for us, and against their masters; and now, after
they have done all that we asked them to do,--helped us to conquer their
masters, and thereby directed toward themselves the furious hate of the
vanquished,--it is proposed in some quarters to turn them over to the
political control of the common enemy of the government and of the
negro. But of this let nothing be said in this place. Waiving humanity,
national honor, the claims of gratitude, the precious satisfaction
arising from deeds of charity and justice to the weak and
defenceless,--the appeal for impartial suffrage addresses itself with
great pertinency to the darkest, coldest, and flintiest side of
the human heart, and would wring righteousness from the unfeeling
calculations of human selfishness.

For in respect to this grand measure it is the good fortune of the negro
that enlightened selfishness, not less than justice, fights on his side.
National interest and national duty, if elsewhere separated, are firmly
united here. The American people can, perhaps, afford to brave the
censure of surrounding nations for the manifest injustice and meanness
of excluding its faithful black soldiers from the ballot-box, but
it cannot afford to allow the moral and mental ener