MR. SUMNER. The Senator says, that, if the same language had been used while he was a Senator, it might justify expulsion. That is enough, Sir; and yet the Senator argues that it will not justify the Senate in refusing to open its doors, when he presents himself for admission. In plain terms, the Senate may pronounce the stigma of expulsion, but not the judgment of exclusion. A similar absurdity would be to say, that in private life an offence would justify kicking an intruder down stairs, but would not justify refusing him admission to our house. It is enough to state this case. Nothing can be clearer in the light of reason--and I say also of the Constitution--than that it is the duty of the Senate to meet disloyalty on the threshold,--to say to it, wherever it first shows itself, that this Chamber is no place for it. The English orator pictured his desolation, when he said that he was alone, and had none to meet his enemies in the gate.[204] Desolate will be the Senate, when it cannot meet disloyalty in the gate. But the Senator from Maine complains, and the Senator from Vermont [Mr. COLLAMER] joins in the complaint, that the claimant is not allowed to _purge_ himself by his oath,--thus using a technical phrase of the law, applicable chiefly to suspected persons. Not allowed to _purge_ himself! Rather say, Sir, not allowed to _perjure_ himself. For, in view of the testimony on your table, the inference is, unhappily, too strong, that in any oath to support the Constitution he must perjure himself. I say this with pain, and anxious not to prejudge the case, but simply because the facts, as they stand without contradiction, leave no opportunity for any other conclusion. Since complaint is made by learned lawyers that the claimant is not allowed to purge himself, I desire to adduce a legal analogy on this question. It is well known that by the Common Law a person is not permitted to take an oath who does not believe in God. This is the general principle; but when we look at the application, we see how completely it illustrates the present case. If a person is known to have openly and recently declared disbelief, he will not be permitted to purge himself by his oath, for the reason that his own declarations are decisive. Here Mr. Sumner read from Greenleaf’s _Law of Evidence_, § 370, and the note to that section, and then proceeded. Here again is additional illustration from the annotations to the great work of Phillipps on the Law of Evidence.