Resting on this conclusion, and assuming that disloyalty is a constitutional disqualification, the single question remains as to the time when evidence with regard to it may be considered. Now, as the Senate, under the Constitution, is exclusive judge of the qualifications of its members, the time when it shall consider a case is obviously within its own discretion, according to the exigency. It may take up the case early or late, before or after the administration of the oath. Under ordinary circumstances, where the case turned upon a question of age or citizenship or inhabitancy, it would be reasonable, and according to usage, that the claimant should be admitted under his certificate, which is _prima facie_ evidence of the requisite qualifications. In such a case the public interests would not suffer, for the disqualification is rather of _form_ than of _substance_. But where the disqualification is founded on disloyalty, it is obvious that the public interests might be seriously compromised, if the claimant were allowed any such privilege,--for the disqualification is of _substance_, and not of _form_. Disloyalty must not find a seat in the Senate, even for a day; nor can any claimant charged with disloyalty complain that the Senate refuses welcome to its trusts. The oath required to support the Constitution is on its face _an oath of loyalty_, and nothing else. The claimant may declare willingness to take it; but such declaration is not an answer to evidence showing disloyalty, unless you are ready to admit present professions to be a sufficient cloak for disloyalty, or, it may be, treason, in the past. On a question of such importance, with positive evidence against his loyalty, the claimant cannot expect permission to purge himself on his oath. The issue is distinctly presented, if he has not already committed himself, so that his oath to support the Constitution is entitled to no consideration. Sir Edward Coke pronounces generally, that “an infidel cannot be sworn,”--a doctrine which has been since mitigated in our courts. But whatever the rule on this subject in our courts, it is reasonable that an _infidel_ to our Government, an infidel to our Constitution, should not be permitted by the Senate to go through the mockery of swearing to support the Constitution; nor should a person charged with such _infidelity_ be permitted to take the oath, unless able to remove the grounds of the charge. The oath is administered by the President of the Senate at your desk, Sir, in the presence of the Senators; and the solemnity of the occasion is an additional argument against administering it to any person whose loyalty is not above suspicion. There is a German treatise entitled, “_On the Lubricity and Slippery Uncertainty of the Suppletory Oath_,”--being the oath of a litigant party in his own case. But an oath to support the Constitution by a claimant charged with disloyalty would be open to suspicion, at least, of lubricity and slippery