The present proposition is aggravated by well-attested facts in our history. A colored man, Crispus Attucks, was the first martyr of our Revolutionary struggle. Throughout the long war of seven years, while national independence was still doubtful, colored men fought sometimes in the same ranks with the whites, and sometimes in separate companies, but always with patriotic courage, and often under the eye of Washington. The blood of the two races mingled, and, dying on the same field, they were buried beneath the same sod. And this same association was continued throughout the War of 1812, in all our naval contests, and especially in the Battle of Lake Erie under Perry, and of Lake Champlain under Macdonough, where colored men performed a conspicuous part. But no better testimony can be presented than the eloquent proclamation of General Jackson, before the Battle of New Orleans, where he calls upon the “free colored inhabitants of Louisiana” to take part in the contest as _American soldiers_, and speaks of them by implication as “fellow-citizens.”[148] “American soldiers” and “fellow-citizens”: such is the language of Andrew Jackson, when speaking of those whom you would despoil of a venerable right. Thus, Sir, throughout our history, you have used these men for defence of the country, you have coined their blood into your own liberties; but you deny them now the smallest liberty of all,--the last which is left to the miserable,--_the liberty to pray_. In the history of misfortune or of tyranny nothing can surpass this final act of robbery. The words of the classic poet are fulfilled:-- “‘The wretch, in short, had nothing.’ You say true: And yet the wretch _must lose that nothing too_.”[149] There is a story of General Washington which illustrates by contrast the wrong of the present proposition. On a certain occasion, being engaged late at the quarters of his aid, Colonel Pickering, of Massachusetts, he proposed to pass the night, if the colored servant, Primus Hall, whom I remember at Boston in my childhood, could find straw and a blanket. Of course they were found; but it was by the surrender of the servant’s own blanket. In the course of the night, the General, becoming aware of the sacrifice, most authoritatively required the servant to share the blanket, saying, “There is room for both, and I insist upon it”; and on the same straw, beneath the same blanket, the General and the faithful African slept till morning sun.[150] You not only refuse to share your liberties with the colored man, but you now propose to take from him his last blanket. * * * * *