MR. CARPENTER. I ask the Senator, then, in what way the State of Virginia got out of the Union, except by destroying the State Government which was a member of the Union? Her territory was always in; her people were always subject to the laws of the United States. MR. SUMNER. There I agree with the Senator. Her people were always in; her territory was always in. MR. CARPENTER. But her Government was not. MR. SUMNER. Not out. Her Government was destroyed. MR. CARPENTER. Yes, and thereby she ceased to be a member of the Union. MR. SUMNER. Rather than say that she had ceased to be a member of the Union, I would say that her Government was destroyed. She never was able to take one foot of her soil or one of her people beyond the jurisdiction of the Nation. The people constitute the State in the just sense, and it has been always our duty to protect them, and this I now propose to do. * * * * * I return to the point, that what it is proposed to prohibit by these fundamental conditions no State can of right do. Therefore to require that Virginia shall not do these things is no infringement of anything that belongs to a State, for a State can have no such privilege. My friend made himself, I said, the advocate of privilege. He complained, that, if we imposed these conditions, we should impair the “privileges” of a State. No such thing. The State can have no such thing. The Senator would not curtail a State of its fair proportions. When will it be apparent that the license to do wrong is only a barbarism? Then, again, the Senator says, if this is already forbidden, why repeat the prohibition in the form of a new condition? Why, Sir, my friend is too well read in the history of Liberty and of its struggles to make that inquiry seriously. Does he not remember how in English history Liberty has been won by just such repetitions? It began with Magna Charta, followed shortly afterward by a repetition; then again, in the time of Charles the First, by another repetition; and then again, at the Revolution of 1688, by still another repetition. But did anybody at either of those great epochs say that the repetition was needless, because all contained in Magna Charta? True, it was all there; but the repetition was needed in order to press it home upon the knowledge and the conscience of the people. MR. CARPENTER. Will the Senator allow me? MR. SUMNER. Certainly. MR. CARPENTER. Is not the great distinction in this fact, that England has no written Constitution,--that the Great Charter is a mere Act of Parliament, which may be repealed to-morrow? With us we have a written Constitution; and when its terms and provisions are once clear, do we not weaken, do we not show our lack of faith, that is, our lack of confidence in the value of the provisions, by reënacting it in the form of a statute?