“That Philip F. Thomas, Senator-elect from Maryland, cannot be admitted to take the oaths of office required by the Constitution and laws, inasmuch as he allowed his minor son to leave the paternal house to serve as a Rebel soldier, and gave him at the time one hundred dollars in money, all of which was ‘aid,’ ‘countenance,’ or ‘encouragement’ to the Rebellion, which he was forbidden to give; and further, inasmuch as in forbearing to disclose and make known the treason of his son to the President, or other proper authorities, according to the requirement of the statute in such cases, he was guilty of misprision of treason as defined by existing law.” Mr. Sumner said:-- A great debate on the question how loyalty shall be secured in the Rebel States is for the time silenced in order to consider how loyalty shall be secured in this Chamber. Everywhere in the Rebel States disloyal persons are struggling for power; and now at the door of the Senate we witness a similar struggle. If disloyalty cannot be shut out of this Chamber, how can we hope to overcome it elsewhere? More than once at other times I have discussed the question of loyalty in the Senate. But this was anterior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Constitutional Amendment. The case is plainer now than then, inasmuch as there is now an explicit text requiring loyalty as a “qualification.” Formerly we were left to something in the nature of inference; now the requirement is plain as language can make it. By the new Amendment it is provided that “no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, … who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” These words are precisely applicable to the present case. They lay down a rule from which there is no appeal; and this rule is not merely in the statutes, but in the Constitution. It is the plain declaration that loyalty is a requirement in a Senator and Representative. If we do not apply it to ourselves now, it is difficult to see with what consistency we can apply it to others. Your course here will affect the meaning of this Constitutional Amendment, if not its validity for the future.