MR. SUMNER. Certainly. MR. CARPENTER. I assume that, for the reason that when we come here to discuss a constitutional question, the power of Congress to do a certain thing, the Senator flies from the Constitution and goes to the Declaration of Independence, and says that is the source of power. MR. SUMNER. The Senator ought to know very well that I have never said any such thing. The Senator proclaims that I fly from the Constitution to the Declaration, which I insist is the source of power. I now yield the floor again, and ask the Senator when I said what he asserts. MR. CARPENTER. The Senator said that the Declaration was coördinate in authority with the Constitution. What did he mean by that? I supposed he used the word in the ordinary acceptation; and if he did, he meant to say that the Declaration was a coördinate grant of power. MR. SUMNER. Just the contrary, Mr. President. Senators will bear me witness. I appeal to you all. I said just the contrary. Repeatedly I said that in my judgment the Declaration of Independence was not a grant of power, but coëqual with the Constitution,--the one being a grant of power, and the other a sovereign rule of interpretation. That is what I said. And now the Senator, in the face of my positive words, not heeding them at all, although they are found in the “Globe,” vindicates himself by putting into my mouth what I never said or suggested, and then proceeds to announce somewhat grandly that I set the Constitution at nought. I challenge the Senator again to point out one word that has ever fallen from my lips, during my service in this Chamber, to sustain him in his assertion. I ask him to do it. He cannot. But why this imputation? Is the oath we have all taken at that desk binding only on him? Does he assume that he has a monopoly of its obligations; that other Senators took it with levity, ready to disregard it,--or at least that I have taken it so? Such is the assumption; at least it is his assumption with regard to me. Now I tell the Senator, and I beg him to understand it for the future, that I shall not allow him to elevate himself above me in any loyalty to the Constitution. Willingly do I yield to the Senator in all he can justly claim of regard and honor. But I do not concede precedence in that service, where, if he does not magnify himself, he degrades me.