Mr. BINGHAM. I thank the gentleman for his courtesy, and I promise him that I will not abuse it. I desire to say to the Gentfrom NewYor when he talks of beings.” student of history, that before the tribunal of history the facts are not against me nor against the coldred race. I beg leave to say to the gentlemen that these people have borne themselves as bravely, as wel, and, I may add, as wisely during the great contest just closed, as any people to whom he can point, situatedinlike circumstances, at any period of the worlds history. They were in chains when the rebellion broke out. They constituted but one 6th of the whole body of the people. By the terms of the constitution of the U.S., 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 theirwhole living generation and the generations before them running back 2 centuries, had been enslaved and brutalized, reduced to the sad and miserable condition of chattels, w“hich, for want of a better name, we call a slave"an article of merchandise,:1 thing of trade, with no acknowledged rightsin the present and denied even the hope of aheritage in the great hereafteryet, sir, temoment that the word “ Liberty” ran along your ranks, the moment that the word “ Emancipation” was cm blazoned upon your banners, those men who, with their ancestors, had been enslaved through 5 generations, rose as one man to stand by this Republic, the last hope of oppressed hu manity upon the earth, until they numbered 175,000 arraigned in arms under our banners doinglirmly, unshrinkingly, and chant] their full share in securing the final victory o our arms. I have said this much in defense of men who had the manhood in the hour of the nations trial to strike for the flag and the unity of the Republic in the tem pest of the great conflict, and to stand, where brave men only could stand, on the field of oised battle, where the earthquake and the fire fed the charge. Sir, I amnot mistaken; and the record of history, to which I have referred, does not, as the gentleman allirms it does, make against me.