MR. SUMNER. Speaking on that subject lately, I took occasion to show that there was no such case. The Senator is nearly right. There had been no such case. It was for our fathers, it was left to them, when they undertook to constitute a new government, to declare equality the essential and cardinal principle of a republic. My answer is precise: there had been no such case. But the true idea of a republican government began with our fathers, and its definition is found in their Declaration of Independence. Were they not sufficiently explicit? Is their language vague? Call it “a glittering generality,”--but there it is, in immortal text, whose truth will be recognized more and more as time advances. You may not recognize it now, but others after you will do it reverence. I say, therefore, that this constitution is repugnant to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. I say that the government which it constitutes is not a republican government. And now the question is, how that difficulty shall be met. I know well that Senators may say, But there are States in the Union with the same discrimination. Connecticut has it; New York also. But permit me to say, these instances do not at all touch the argument. We are not called now to review the constitution of Connecticut or New York, but we are called at this moment, in the discharge of a solemn duty, to review the constitution of this proposed State. If called in this Chamber, under the responsibilities of official position, to review the constitution of Connecticut or New York, my course would be clear to say that it was not republican in form; but there is no such occasion, and therefore we have no such responsibility. There are other States with regard to which we have at this moment that responsibility, and I allude to them for illustration: I mean the States lately in rebellion. Their constitutions have been overthrown or subverted; new constitutions have been set up, which it becomes the solemn duty of Congress to examine, to see whether they are republican in form, and not repugnant to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. We have, in relation to those States, the very responsibility now pressing upon us with regard to this new candidate, distant Colorado. We must examine the constitutions, and see whether or not they are in conformity with those sublime principles which enter into the true idea of a republican government.