MR. PRESIDENT,--You will bear witness that I am no volunteer now. I have been no volunteer on any of these recurring occasions when I have been assailed in this Chamber. I have begun no question. I began no question with the Senator from Nevada. I began no question with the other Senator on my right [Mr. TRUMBULL]. I began no question yesterday with the Senator from New York [Mr. CONKLING].[239] I began no question, either, with the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. CARPENTER].[240] But I am here to answer; and I begin by asking to have read at the desk what I did say, and what the Senator from Nevada was unwilling, as he declared, to have incorporated in his speech. I can understand that he was very unwilling. I send the passage to the Chair. The passage referred to, embracing the first three paragraphs of Mr. Sumner’s statement in answer to Mr. Trumbull, January 21st,[241] having been read, he proceeded:-- That statement is to the effect that on my motion that important proposition was put into the bill. Does anybody question it? Has the impeachment of the Senator to-day impaired that statement by a hair’s-breadth? He shows that in another part of this Capitol patriot Representatives were striving in the same direction. All honor to them! God forbid that I should ever grudge to any of my associates in this great controversy any of the fame that belongs to them! There is enough for all, provided we have been faithful. Sir, it is not in my nature to take from any one credit, character, fame, to which he is justly entitled. The world is wide enough for all. Let each enjoy what he has earned. I ask nothing for myself. I asked nothing the other day; what I said was only in reply to the impeachment, the arraignment let me call it, by the Senator from Illinois. I then simply said it was on my motion that this identical requirement went into the bill. The Senator, in reply, seeks to show that in the other Chamber a similar proposition was brought forward; but it did not become a part of the bill. He shows that it was brought forward in this Chamber, but did not become a part of the bill. It was on my motion that it did become a part of the bill. It was not unnatural, perhaps, that I should go further, as I did, and say that in making this motion I only acted in harmony with my life and best exertions for years. I have the whole record here. Shall I open it? I hesitate. In doing so I break a vow with myself. And yet it cannot be necessary. You know me in this Chamber; you know how I have devoted myself from the beginning to this idea, how constantly I have maintained it and urged it from the earliest date. * * * * * The first stage in this series--you [Mr. ANTHONY, of Rhode Island, in the chair] remember it; you were here; the Senator from Nevada was not here--goes to February 11, 1862, when