The result of the inquiry may be one way or another; but the inquiry must be made.

Not to make it is abandonment of present duty; and not to assert the power is abandonment of an essential right of self-defence.

I, too, desire a representative for Oregon; but I know full well that a disloyal representative is no representative,--or rather, Sir, is worse than no representative.

But it becomes irresistible, when we consider the positive demands of our commerce in these quarters.

In sustaining such a representative, you sacrifice substance to form,--you abandon the living principle, content with the dead letter,--you “keep the word of promise to the ear, and break it to the hope,”--you offer to the people of Oregon…

In the name of the people of Oregon, whose wishes are manifest in the papers before us, I protest against the pretension that they can be represented by a disloyal person.

Misrepresentation is not and never can be representation.

A similar absurdity would be to say, that in private life an offence would justify kicking an intruder down stairs, but would not justify refusing him admission to our house.

Nothing can be clearer in the light of reason--and I say also of the Constitution--than that it is the duty of the Senate to meet disloyalty on the threshold,--to say to it, wherever it first shows itself, that this Chamber is no place for…

For, in view of the testimony on your table, the inference is, unhappily, too strong, that in any oath to support the Constitution he must perjure himself.

I say this with pain, and anxious not to prejudge the case, but simply because the facts, as they stand without contradiction, leave no opportunity for any other conclusion.

If a person is known to have openly and recently declared disbelief, he will not be permitted to purge himself by his oath, for the reason that his own declarations are decisive.

But it seems to me clear, that, if you accept the declarations of a person as decisive against his religious belief, they must be accepted as equally decisive with regard to his political belief.

An oath to support the Constitution presupposes political belief, as much as the oath itself presupposes religious belief.

If assured of the customary protection afforded by treaties and the watchful presence of a diplomatic representative, they must become of greater importance still.

Pardon me, Sir, but I cannot refrain from astonishment that Senators, learned lawyers, should be willing to treat the oath to support the Constitution as an oath of purgation, an oath of defecation, an oath of purification,--by which a…

By that oath the accepted Senator dedicates himself solemnly to the Constitution.

It is not an oath of purgation, as Senators insist, but an oath of consecration.

To such an oath may be fitly applied the words of the ancients, when they spoke of the oath as “the greatest pledge of faith among men.

Obviously this is widely different from the oath by which a person clears himself from suspicion, or cleanses his name.

By such oaths, “sworn is the tongue, but unsworn is the mind.” With such oaths for seed, perjury is the natural harvest.

If Senators who have spoken in this debate can have their own way, you will degrade the solemn oath of the Constitution to the same class, and make it the seed of similar harvest.

For myself, I am determined, so far as my vote or voice can go, that the oath shall mean something, and that it shall be kept solemn and above suspicion.

Only sixty vessels are employed between the United States and Russia, while four hundred and ninety are employed between the United States and Hayti.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.