The Senator from Ohio [Mr. WADE] has, with unanswerable force, depicted the offensive character of this precedent, and he has taught us how, now that we are a majority, we should hesitate to set such an example for the future. How should we feel, he has aptly reminded us, if, as a minority, we had such a cup handed to our lips by a patriot Senator? Doubtless, that for the time patriotism had departed. I should not have been betrayed into these remarks now, but for topics introduced by the Senator from Maine. When I opened this debate, this morning, Senators will bear me witness, I made no allusion to any discussion elsewhere. I did not think a caucus a proper subject for this Chamber; nor did I attribute to it anything of the character which the Senator from Maine does. He makes it not merely sacred, but a _sacro-sanct pact_, by which every one at the meeting is solemnly bound. What authority is there for any such conclusion? Senators went to that caucus, I presume, like myself, without knowing what was to be considered; and let me confess, when the proposition, in its first form, was presented, I was startled by its offensive character. I could not believe that a Senator, knowing the responsibilities and duties of a Senator, and under the oath of a Senator, could start such a thing. Well, Sir, discussion went on. The proposition was amended, modified, mitigated, losing something of its offensiveness in form, but it still remained substantially offensive. I am not aware that any Senator suggested that it should be adopted as a rule of the Senate. If any one did, I did not hear it, though paying close attention to the discussion. I do not think the Senator from Maine made any such suggestion. I certainly never supposed that anybody would propose such a rule. So far as it was to have any value, I supposed it was to be the recorded result of the deliberations of political associates,--so far as practicable, a guide for their action, but not a constraint embodied in a perpetual record. At the last moment, after the vote had been declared to which the Senator from Maine refers, and to which I should make no allusion, if he had not brought it forward, I rose in the caucus, and said, “I will not be bound by any such proposition.” When it had arrived at the stage to which I refer,--the Senator from Maine will not forget it, for he interposed a remark which I will not quote now---- MR. FESSENDEN. You had better quote it. I said, “Then you should not have voted on the subject, if you did not mean to be bound by the decision of the majority.” MR. SUMNER. To which I replied, “I am a Senator of the United States.” MR. FESSENDEN. I did not hear the reply.