nce the quintessence, the high-wines, and
sublimation of an untruth, he could not have more concentrated his
language into a libel.

"What is the fact, sir? It is perfectly notorious that these four
million slaves have not only taken care of themselves amid all the
ingenious impediments which tyrants could impose, but they have borne
upon their stalwart shoulders their masters, millions of people, for a
century. Why, sir, it seemed as impossible for a man to swim the
Atlantic with Mount Atlas upon his back, or make harmonious base to
the thunders of heaven. But these men have achieved the world's
wonder--coming out from the tortures of slavery, from the
prison-house, untainted with dishonor or crime, and out of the war
free, noble, brave, and more worthy of their friends, always true to
the flag.

"Mr. Speaker, it was in fable that a man pointed a lion to the picture
which represented the king of the forest prostrate, with a man's foot
on his neck, and asked what he thought of that. The reply was, 'Lions
have no painters.' For days the unblushing apostles of sham Democracy
have in this House drawn pictures of the ignorance and degradation of
the people of color in the District of Columbia. Had the subjects of
their wanton defamation had a Representative here, there would have
been a different coloring to the picture, and I would gladly leave
their defense to the Representatives of classes who have by hundreds
darkened these galleries with their sable countenances, waiting for
days to hear the decisive vote which announces that their freedom is
not a mockery.

"Who are they to whom this bill proposes to give suffrage? They are
twenty thousand people, owning twenty-one churches, maintaining
thirty-three day schools, and paying taxes on more than one and a
quarter million dollars' worth of real property. Thirty per cent. of
their number were slaves; but the census does not show that there is a
Democratic congressional district in the Union where a larger
proportion of its population are found attendant at the churches or in
the schools.

"They did not follow the example of their pale-faced neighbors, to the
number of thousands, crossing the line to join in the rebellion; but
three thousand and more of their number went into the Union army,
nearly one thousand of whom, as soldiers, fell by disease and battle
in the room of those who wept on Northern soil for rebel defeats, and
now decry the manhood and withhold just r