MR. SUMNER. I must say I cannot follow my friend to that conclusion, nor do I see the difference he makes between Magna Charta in England and our Constitution. I believe they are very much alike. And I believe that the time is at hand when another document of our history will stand side by side with the Constitution, and enjoy with it coëqual authority, as it has more than the renown of the Constitution: I mean the Declaration of Independence. This is the first Constitution of our history. It is our first Magna Charta. Nor can any State depart from it; nor can this Nation depart from it. To all the promises and the pledges of that great Declaration are we all pledged, whether as Nation or as State. The Nation, when it bends before them, exalts itself; and when it requires their performance of a State, again exalts itself, and exalts the State also. So I see it. Full well, Sir, I know that in other days, when Slavery prevailed in this Chamber, there was a different rule of interpretation; but I had thought that our war had changed all that. Sir, to my mind the greatest victory in that terrible conflict was not at Appomattox: oh, no, by no means! Nor was it in the triumphal march of Sherman: oh, no, by no means! This greatest victory was the establishment of a new rule of interpretation by which the institutions of our country are dedicated forevermore to Human Rights, and the Declaration of Independence is made a living letter instead of a promise. Clearly, unquestionably, beyond all doubt, that, Sir, was the greatest victory of our war,--greater than any found on any field of blood: as a victory of ideas is above any victory of the sword; as the establishment of Human Rights is the end and consummation of government, without which government is hard to bear, if not a sham. January 17th, the Joint Resolution as amended was laid on the table, and the Senate took up the House bill, which admitted the State to representation clear of all conditions; immediately whereupon Mr. Edmunds moved the proviso concerning the oath to be taken by members of the Legislature and State officers which had been attached to the former measure. The renewal of this proviso gave rise to renewed and protracted debate, in the course of which, Mr. Sumner, in speeches on the 18th and 19th, in reply to an elaborate defence of Governor Walker by Mr. Stewart against the charges of disloyalty and meditated bad faith, adduced copious extracts from speeches of the Governor and others, together with numerous letters from various parts of the State, all serving to show, as he conceived, that the late election was “one huge, colossal fraud.”