I insist that the Declaration is of equal and coördinate authority with the Constitution itself.
Editor's note · Context
Sumner asserts the equal authority of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in matters of law.
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The most distant are not without a present influence on our daily lives.
As the Brotherhood of Man is practically recognized, it becomes impossible to restrict the feeling within any exclusive circle of country, and to set up an unchristian distinction of honor between civil war and international war.
I agree with the Convention in the importance of the new organization; nor do I think there are many candid persons, recognizing morals as the soul of all true politics, who will hesitate in this conclusion.
They belong to a system so essentially irrational, that all the admitted virtues of many of its agents cannot save it from judgment.





