Therefore, Sir, I am not without precedent, when I bring forward an important measure and ask your votes, even though it have not the sanction of this important committee. I wish it had their sanction; but I do not hesitate to say that this bill is more important to the Judiciary Committee than that committee is important to the bill. In this matter the committee will suffer most. A measure like this, which links with the National Constitution, and with the Declaration of Independence, if the Senator from Wisconsin will pardon me-- MR. CARPENTER. I rise to ask why that inquiry is made of me. Have I criticized allusions to the Declaration of Independence? MR. SUMNER. I feared the Senator would not allow allusion to the Declaration, except as a “revolutionary” document. I say, this measure, linked as it is with the great title-deeds of our country, merits the support not only of the Judiciary Committee, but of this Chamber. The Senate cannot afford to reject it. Sir, I am weak and humble; but I know that when I present this measure and plead for its adoption I am strong, because I have behind me infinite justice and the wrongs of an oppressed race. The measure is not hasty. It has been carefully considered already in this Chamber, much considered elsewhere, considered by lawyers, by politicians,--ay, Sir, and considered by our colored fellow-citizens, whose rights it vindicates. But at the eleventh hour the Senator comes forward with a substitute which is to a certain extent an emasculated synonym of the original measure, seeming to be like and yet not like, feeble where the original is strong, incomplete where the original is complete, petty where the original is ample, and without machinery for its enforcement, while the original is well-supplied and most effective. That you may understand the amendment introduced by me, I call attention to the original Civil Rights Act, out of which it grows and to which it is a supplement. That great statute was passed April 9, 1866, and is entitled, “An Act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and to furnish the means of their vindication.”[226] It begins by declaring who are citizens of the United States, and then proceeds:-- “Such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States,”-- To do what?