Volume 10 — LOYALTY IN THE SENATE: THE IRON-CLAD OATH FOR SENATORS.

Speech in the Senate, on a New Rule requiring the Oath of Loyalty for Senators, January 25, 1864.

By an Act of Congress of July 2, 1862, a new oath of office was prescribed in the following terms:—

“That hereafter every person elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit under the Government of the United States, either in the civil, military, or naval departments of the public service, excepting the President of the United States, shall, before entering upon the duties of such office, and before being entitled to any of the salary or other emoluments thereof, take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation.”

Then follows the oath or affirmation, as follows:—

“I, A. B., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have neither sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States; that I have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power, or constitution, within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto. And I do further swear (or affirm) that to the best of my knowledge and ability I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

The Act then provides:—

“Which said oath, so taken and signed, shall be preserved among the files of the Court, House of Congress, or Department to which the said office may appertain.”[289]

This oath was popularly known as “the Iron-Clad Oath.”

On the organization of the Senate, March 4, 1863, being the first organization after the statute requiring the oath, it became necessary to consider its applicability to the Senate. Debate ensued, which can be understood only by a preliminary explanation.

The Senate was organized, in the absence of the Vice-President, by the choice of Hon. Solomon Foot, of Vermont, as President pro tempore. The oath to support the Constitution was administered to him by Mr. Foster, of Connecticut, but the additional oath was omitted. The President pro tempore then proceeded to say:—

“Senators elect and Senators whose term commences under a reëlection at this time will receive the oath of office in the order in which their names will be called by the Secretary.”

The Secretary then called the names of a long list of Senators, who came forward and took the customary oath. But the President pro tempore did not offer to administer the additional oath; nor, at the time of qualification, was anything said with regard to it. After the conclusion of the ceremony, Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, said:—

“I desire to call the attention of the President of the Senate, and of the Senate itself, to an Act of Congress approved 2d July, 1862.”

Then, reading the Act, he added:—

“I do not know that any motion in regard to it is necessary, further than calling the attention of the presiding officer and of the Senate to the law.”

The President pro tempore said:—

“The Chair presumes it is sufficient to call the attention of Senators to that duty, and that that duty will be performed as required by law.”

Nothing, however, was done by the Chair or by Senators.

The next day, 5th March, two other Senators, Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Sprague, came forward to be qualified. The Chair proceeded to administer to these Senators the usual oath to support the Constitution, but did not administer the additional oath, and these Senators took their seats. Shortly afterwards, during the session of that day, on a call of the yeas and nays, all these Senators were called, and answered to their names.

Immediately after this call, Mr. Sumner moved an additional rule of the Senate, requiring that the oath or affirmation prescribed by Act of Congress of July 2, 1862, should be taken and subscribed by every Senator in open Senate before entering upon his duties.

On the next day, 6th of March, Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, who had been absent before, came forward to be qualified. The Chair, as in the other cases, administered the oath to support the Constitution, but omitted the additional oath, and Mr. Bayard took his seat. Afterwards, on this day, Mr. Sumner called up the proposed rule for consideration, and objected to an executive session until the question of the rule was settled, as follows.

“Here is a statute of Congress, and the question is, whether the Senate is going to set an example of obedience to it or of disobedience; that is all.… If the Senate now choose to go into executive session, they choose to enter upon most important duties in disregard of an Act of Congress which they have assisted in putting upon the statute-book.”

On coming out of executive session, which was ordered, the Senate proceeded with the consideration of the proposed rule, when Mr. Sumner spoke in vindication of it, concluding as follows.

“And now, Sir, as I conclude, let me say that I desire to take and subscribe the new oath in open Senate, that I may in all respects qualify myself for the discharge of my duties as a Senator. Others will do as they please, or as the Senate shall require. But I hope that I may appeal to the Chair to administer that oath to myself, or to direct that it shall be administered. With the expression of this desire I take my seat.”

The President pro tempore made no offer to administer the oath, but said simply:—

“The subject is under debate.”

The debate was continued until the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull] proposed that the Chair should proceed to administer the oath, while Mr. Sumner expressed a hope that the Chair would consent to administer the oath to him.

Shortly afterwards the President pro tempore said:—

“The Chair proposes now to take and subscribe this oath, in pursuance of the law of 2d July last, and, that being done, the Chair will administer the oath to such members as will voluntarily take it.”

The oath was then administered to Mr. Foot by Mr. Foster. Resuming the chair, the President pro tempore then said:—

“The Chair will now direct the Clerk to call, in alphabetical order, the names of all Senators who have been elected or reëlected since the 2d July, 1862, that being the day of the approval of the Act; and such Senators present, whose names shall be called, as choose to do so, will come forward to the Secretary’s desk and receive the oath of office administered by the Chair, after which they will have an opportunity to subscribe the oath.”

The Senators present, whose names were called, some of them after delay, came forward and took the oath; and then, at the suggestion of the Chair, Mr. Sumner withdrew the resolution. The Senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] was not then present.

Before withdrawing the resolution, Mr. Sumner, in reply to Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, again vindicated the proposed rule, insisting that the statute was applicable to Senators as “civil officers,” concluding as follows.

It is our duty to guard the loyalty of this Chamber. In requiring that a person shall purge himself with regard to the past, we simply take a new assurance of fidelity for the present. Others may think that Jefferson Davis, Robert Toombs, or Judah Benjamin may resume his seat in this body, on taking a simple oath to support the Constitution. I do not think so; and I gladly seize the earliest opportunity, since the commentary of the Senator from Maryland, to declare my conviction that no person, whose loyalty is not manifest to the Senate, can be allowed to approach your desk and take the oath of a Senator. The Senate must shut the door upon him. This is not the first time that I have made this declaration: nor have I contented myself with making the declaration; I have argued it. Nothing is clearer than this: a traitor cannot be a member of the Senate. But a person who cannot take this oath, retroactive though it be, must have been a traitor. Once a traitor, always a traitor, unless where changed by pardon or amnesty.

I know not what changes may be required by changing events. For myself, I shall always welcome every act of just clemency or condonation. But for the present the statute is wise and conservative. It only remains that we should stand by it.

At the next session of Congress Mr. Sumner returned to this question. December 17, 1863, he submitted a resolution proposing a new rule.

“Resolved, That the following be added to the rules of the Senate:—

“The oath or affirmation prescribed by Act of Congress of July 2, 1862, to be taken and subscribed before entering upon the duties of office, shall be taken and subscribed by every Senator in open Senate before entering upon his duties. It shall also be taken and subscribed in the same way by the Secretary of the Senate; but the other officers of the Senate may take and subscribe it in the office of the Secretary.”

December 18th, the resolution came up for consideration, when Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, moved as a substitute that the Judiciary Committee be directed to inquire whether Senators and Representatives are included within the provisions of the Act prescribing the oath, and whether the Act is constitutional. Subsequently, he moved that the whole subject, including the resolution and the substitute, be referred to the Judiciary Committee, which, after debate, was rejected,—Yeas 15, Nays 26. The debate was continued, in the course of which Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, and Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, spoke at length.

January 25, 1864, Mr. Sumner spoke as follows.

MR. PRESIDENT,—There is a time for all things; but there are times when certain things are out of place; and this principle is especially applicable to the present debate. The question is on the adoption of a rule of the Senate to carry out an existing statute. It is not on the passage of the statute, or on its proposed repeal, but it is simply on its recognition as an existing statute, and the enforcement of its plain requirement. Considering the simplicity of the question, well may we be astonished at much that has been intruded into this debate.

The Senate is a branch of the legislative power, in conjunction with the House of Representatives and the President. Neither alone can make or unmake a law. The concurrence of all three is essential, whether in making or unmaking. So long as the law exists, there is no difference between the obligations of the Senate and the obligations of the humblest citizen, except, perhaps, that the Senate, which helped to make the law, is bound to set an example of obedience beyond any citizen.

Therefore I put aside, as entirely irrelevant, much that we have heard against the proposed rule. This is not the time to say that the oath is unconstitutional, or that it is ex post facto. These are considerations properly arising on the passage of the statute, or on a proposition for its repeal. The Senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] and the Senator from Maryland [Mr. Johnson], who have argued these topics so exhaustively, were either too late or too early. The statute is already the law of the land, and there is no bill pending for its repeal.

On a former occasion I vindicated the constitutionality of the statute, and I now willingly leave that topic to the judgment of Senators, enlightened by the wisdom of the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Collamer], whose argument has not been answered. But I repeat that this objection is utterly out of place at this moment.

A Senator over the way [Mr. Hendricks] has gone so far as to introduce my course on a former occasion as an apology for not taking the oath.[290] Because I denounced an infamous statute, which was a scandal to civilization, as unconstitutional and utterly unworthy the support of virtuous citizens, it is argued that the Slave-Drivers, then in power, were more lenient to me than we are now to them. In other words, the Slave-Drivers required of me an oath to support a statute which I abhorred, and therefore we are wrong in requiring the proposed oath. But this argument confounds two cases which are wide apart as the poles. While denouncing an outrageous statute, and refusing to play the part of slave-hunter, I never joined in rebellion against my country, or uttered one word except in loyalty. But here are persons with bloody hands, in battle array, striking at all we hold dear,—or others who have acted with them. Such persons will be justly brought to the test of an oath, and they can claim no immunity from the example of those patriot citizens who, recognizing the crime of Slavery, refused to become in any way its tools.

And another Senator [Mr. Johnson] has taken this occasion to arraign me for certain opinions on another question, and he complained that I place them under the protection of a judgment of the Supreme Court. This is not the time for the discussion of “Reconstruction.” It has nothing to do with the matter before the Senate. I may think that the Government of the United States has belligerent rights, as well as the right of sovereignty, over the Rebel States,—that it is especially the duty of Congress to take care that these rights are so exercised as to crush the Rebellion, and to prevent its breaking out again,—and that, to this end, Congress must take all possible bonds for the future. These opinions, which the Senator chose to characterize harshly, may be wrong, but they have nothing to do with the business in hand. At a proper time I shall be ready to defend them. At present I choose not to be diverted from the issue before us.

Putting aside irrelevant questions, and presenting the single point in issue, the case becomes too plain for argument. It is simply this: Will the Senate obey an existing statute? But here we must consider the meaning of the statute.

That the Senate will openly refuse obedience to an existing statute, recently enacted, in support of loyalty, is not to be supposed without impeachment of the loyalty of the Senate. Only because the question of obedience has been complicated with other questions has there been for a moment any doubt on this head. Clearly, the Senate will not disobey an existing statute. It is, then, on the statute alone, and nothing else, that any question can arise.

And here I ask leave to recall the Senate from the learned commentary and elaborate diversion of the Senator from Delaware. The actual question is one which may be treated without learning and without effort. It arises on the following words of the statute:—

“Hereafter every person elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit under the Government of the United States, either in the civil, military, or naval departments of the public service, excepting the President of the United States, shall, before entering upon the duties of such office, and before being entitled to any of the salary or other emoluments thereof, take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation [here follows the oath]; which said oath, so taken and signed, shall be preserved among the files of the Court, House of Congress, or Department to which the said office may appertain.”[291]

It cannot fail to be observed here that the language is plain rather than technical. Every person “elected” or “appointed” to any “office” in the “civil, military, or naval departments of the public service” must take the oath. What words could be broader than “departments” and “public service”?

Obviously, and beyond all question, a Senator is “elected.” Therefore on this point there is no question.

The inquiry recurs, Is a Senator an “officer” in the “civil department of the public service”?

Is he an “officer”?

Is he in the “civil department”?

To raise these questions seems absurd. But I have not raised them. This is done by others. You might as well raise the question, if a man is a creature, and belongs to the human family.

Look now at these questions in their order.

1. Is a Senator an “officer”? Here please to consult the dictionary. I turn to Webster.

“Office.—Offices are civil, judicial, ministerial, executive, legislative, political, municipal, diplomatic, military, ecclesiastical, &c.”

Thus, plainly, offices are legislative. But why summon the dictionary? And yet the zeal of the other side leaves no alternative.

Not content with the dictionary, I call attention to the use of the word in other authoritative places,—and pardon me, if I begin with the Constitution of Massachusetts, written originally by John Adams.

In the Bill of Rights of this Constitution it is declared:—

“All power residing originally in the people, and being derived from them, the several magistrates and officers of government, vested with authority, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, are their substitutes and agents, and are at all times accountable to them.”[292]

Members of the Legislature are classed among officers, and thus this word received its interpretation.

In another part of the same Constitution it is provided:—

“Any person chosen Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Councillor, Senator, or Representative, and accepting the trust, shall, before he proceed to execute the duties of his place or office, make and subscribe the following declaration.”[293]

Here the place or trust of a Senator or Representative is called an office. And this same use of these terms, as synonymous, and applicable to the post of Senator or Representative, is continued:—

“Every person chosen to either of the places or offices aforesaid [meaning the offices of Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Councillor, Senator, or Representative] … shall, before he enters on the discharge of the business of his place or office, take and subscribe,”[294] &c.

The authority of New Hampshire is like that of Massachusetts. Her Constitution declares:—

“All power residing originally in, and being derived from, the people, all the magistrates and officers of government are their substitutes and agents, and at all times accountable to them.”[295]

Here the word “officers” obviously means the substitutes and agents of the people. But who are substitutes and agents of the people more than Senators?

Then again, in the same Constitution, it is declared:—

“No office or place whatsoever in government shall be hereditary.”[296]

Here the word “office” is made synonymous with “place.”

The Constitution of Vermont testifies:—

“All power being originally inherent in, and consequently derived from, the people, therefore all officers of government, whether legislative or executive, are their trustees and servants.”[297]

Thus, in Vermont, members of the Legislature are “officers.”

The old Constitution of New Jersey testifies also, in the clause prescribing the qualifications entitling a person to vote:—

“For representatives in Council and Assembly, and also for all other public officers that shall be elected by the people of the county at large.”[298]

Here again members of the Legislature are treated as “public officers.”

The Constitution of Pennsylvania testifies:—

“Members of the General Assembly, and all officers, executive and judicial, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and to perform the duties of their respective offices with fidelity.”[299]

Here members of the General Assembly are classed with those holding “offices.”

The original Constitution of New York is more positive:—

“The chancellor and judges of the Supreme Court shall not at the same time hold any other office, excepting that of Delegate to the General Congress upon special occasions; and the first judges of the county courts in the several counties shall not at the same time hold any other office, excepting that of Senator or Delegate to the General Congress.”[300]

Here the post of Delegate to the General Congress, and also of “Senator,” is treated as an “office.”

Surely this is enough. The post of Senator is an office of honor or profit, and a “Senator” is an “officer.”

2. But, assuming that the post of Senator is an “office,” and that a Senator is an “officer,” the question occurs, To what “department of the public service” does he belong?

Clearly he is not of the “military” or “naval” department. But if not “military” or “naval,” he must be “civil.” Here again consult the dictionary. I cite Webster.

“Civil. It is distinguished from ecclesiastical, which respects the Church, and from military, which respects the army and navy.—This term is often employed in contrast with military: as, a civil hospital, the civil service, &c.”

“Civil List. In England, formerly, a list of the entire expenses of the civil government; hence the officers of civil government, who are paid from the public treasury; also, the revenue appropriated to support the civil government.”

“Civil State. The whole body of the laity or citizens, not included under the military, maritime, and ecclesiastical states.”

To say that a Senator is not included under this comprehensive, but distinctive term, is simply an absurdity.

It is evident that Congress adopted the words of the statute because they were comprehensive and distinctive. They obviously comprehended all “officers” in the “public service,” whether “elected,” like a Senator, or “appointed,” like a judge. But, beyond their plainness, these words had this added advantage, that already for more than a generation they had received a practical interpretation from Congress.

Here is the familiar Blue Book. Its title-page begins:—

“Register of officers and agents, civil, military, and naval, in the service of the United States.”

Turning to the contents, we find in this list Members of Congress, including Senators and Representatives, with the “officers and agents” of the two Houses.

If we go back to the Blue Book for 1820, which is now in my hands, we find the same title, and the same enumeration of Senators and Representatives.

This Blue Book is still published, in pursuance of a joint resolution by Congress, originally adopted as long ago as 27th April, 1816, with the following title:—

“Resolution requiring the Secretary of State to compile and print, once in every two years, a register of all officers and agents, civil, military, and naval, in the service of the United States.”

If Senators are properly included in such a register, it is only as belonging to the “civil department of the public service,” which is precisely where they have been placed by the recent Act of Congress.

The only apology for the objection urged from the beginning of this debate with so much pertinacity is founded on the case of Mr. Blount, the Senator expelled and afterwards impeached, at the close of the last century. I shall not take time to consider this case. It has been amply done by others. On former occasions I have done it at length. And yet I will not leave it without protesting again that it is absolutely inapplicable to the present occasion. If that case were out of the way, nobody would have suggested that a “Senator” was not an “officer in the civil department of the public service.” Now what did this case decide? Let another give the summary. I quote the words of Mr. Wharton, in the notes to his edition of the State Trials.

“In a legal point of view, all that this case decides is, that a Senator of the United States, who has been expelled from his seat, is not, after such expulsion, subject to impeachment; and perhaps from this the broader proposition may be drawn, that none are liable to impeachment except officers of the government, in the technical sense, excluding thereby members of the National Legislature.”[301]

The case of Mr. Blount has no application to the present question. It is not an interpretation of the statute, and so far as it illustrates the Constitution it simply concerns the liability to impeachment. But even this case has often been drawn into doubt. And if we look into the proceedings of the time, we find that the decision, such as it was, encountered an able and earnest opposition.

Among those who took a distinguished part on that occasion was James A. Bayard,[302] of Delaware, the eminent Representative who conducted the impeachment as Manager on the part of the House of Representatives. In his effective argument he has set forth the true signification of the Constitution. From the argument of the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] in the present debate I confidently appeal to that of the earlier Mr. Bayard. Here is a passage.

“I have submitted, in the course of my argument, that the sound principle of construction to be adopted, in relation to the construction of an instrument having in view the vast object of settling the powers of the Government and the rights of the people, is to give it such an interpretation as is best calculated to give effect generally to all its parts according to its true design. If I am supported in this principle, I shall be able to show, by strong cases under the Constitution, that its undeniable intention must be frustrated, if a Senator be not considered an officer of the United States.

“I find it provided in the seventh clause of the third section of the first article, that conviction on impeachment disqualifies the party convicted from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States. If a seat in the Senate be not an office, the disqualification does not extend to it. And yet can it reasonably be contended that the policy which incapacitates a citizen, if convicted on impeachment, from holding an office the most mean and humble, does not apply to the case of a Senator? The wisdom of the Constitution, Sir, has considered a conviction as an evidence of moral unfitness for public trust. It never can happen but in the case of a great national offence. And shall such an offender, degraded from the capacity of even being doorkeeper of this Chamber, yet retain the capacity of being a member of a body of the most dignity, trust, and power in the country? This is a solecism in politics, an absurdity in reason, which I trust this honorable court will not willingly by their act attach to an instrument so highly and justly revered as the Constitution of our Government.

“I find also a provision in the seventh [eighth] clause of the ninth section of the first article, that ‘no person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.’ If a Senator holds no office of profit or trust under the United States, it is lawful for him to accept a present, title, or office from any king or foreign state. Can it be possible that a public functionary, of all others the peculiar object of this jealous restriction, is, in fact, the sole object of exemption from its operation? Can it be imagined that a Senator, upon whom the Constitution has heaped the powers and trusts of legislator, judge, and executive magistrate, is the only person who is left exposed to the seductions of foreign influence? It can never be admitted that a situation which from its trust and importance most invites corruption is the only one which the Constitution has not guarded against. If, Sir, a Senator be not an officer under this clause, it might happen that the Senate of the United States might become a House of Lords. It would be in the power of any king in Europe to change our free government, and to convert one branch, at least, from a republican into an aristocratic form. You will not suffer an ensign in your army to accept the humble title of Chevalier, and yet you will allow an integral part of the Government to be composed of earls and dukes. And let me pray the honorable Court to remember, at the same time, that the Constitution has provided that a member of either House shall not be allowed to retain his seat and hold any commission, civil or military, under the United States. The President has no titles to grant, nor offices of great emolument to confer; and yet the chaste republicanism of the Constitution will not allow a Senator to feel the influence of his patronage; and yet, at the same time, he may lawfully be the pensioner or the titular noble of a foreign power. Such a doctrine is not simply absurd, but infinitely dangerous.”[303]

In view of these emphatic words, it is difficult to see how any person can insist that a “Senator” is not a “civil officer,” even according to the text of the Constitution. Conceding to the judgment on the trial of impeachment all the authority which can belong to it, you cannot properly deduce from it any conclusion, except that a Senator already expelled is not a “civil officer” liable to impeachment: nothing beyond this.

But whatever the signification of this word in the Constitution, even conceding all that is claimed for it there, the instance is entirely inapplicable to the interpretation of the statute in question. If there be doubt on the Constitution, there is none on the statute. The latter is plain, and there are no associate words to interfere with its natural and unequivocal signification.

I conclude this branch of the subject as I began, by putting aside all irrelevant matter, all superfluous questions, all surplusage, all topics not properly germane to the debate. There is no question of the Constitution, no question of ex post facto, but a simple question on the meaning of a statute.

The oath is prescribed by Congress. It is too late to debate its constitutionality thus incidentally. It only remains for us to take it, promptly, patriotically. The procrastination of this debate is of evil example. How can we expect the alacrity of loyalty among the people, if the Senate hesitates?

Another objection to the proposed rule has been brought forward by the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Foot]. According to him, the statute is obligatory, and the oath must be taken by Senators, but a rule requiring the oath is superfluous and without precedent. The argument of the Senator is plausible, but it is answered by a simple statement of facts, in which, as presiding officer of the Senate, he bore a conspicuous part.

From this statement it will appear that the rule, or some equivalent action of the Senate, is not superfluous.

Here Mr. Sumner set forth the facts substantially as presented in the Introduction, showing the necessity of the proposed rule, and then proceeded.

The language of the Chair, when inviting Senators to take the oath, left a loophole through which they might avoid the oath. It was, “Such Senators present as choose to do so will come forward,” and then “they will have an opportunity to subscribe the oath.” In such terms Senators were invited to do as they pleased, thus making a discrimination between the earlier oath, which they were obliged to take in order to be qualified, and the additional oath, which they were free to neglect.

Such is a plain statement of facts, which I make in no spirit of personal criticism, but simply that you may see the occasion for the proposed rule.

Had the Chair at the beginning proceeded to administer the additional oath, as the earlier oath, there would have been no occasion for a rule. Or had the Chair afterwards, when attention was called to the omission, administered the additional oath according to the requirement of the statute, there would have been no occasion for a rule.

The Chair did no such thing, but left the taking of the oath to the conscience or will of each Senator. And though the statute solemnly declares that “every person elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit under the Government of the United States … shall, before entering upon the duties of such office, and before being entitled to any of the salary or other emoluments thereof, take and subscribe” the oath in question, yet the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] has not only “entered upon the duties” of his office as Senator, but he has continued to discharge these duties, and to draw his salary, although he has never taken and subscribed the oath.

Evidently something must be done to correct this incongruity, and to rehabilitate, if I may so say, the Act of Congress. I know no better way than by the proposed rule. But I have no partiality for this mode. I am ready for any other proposition which will lift the statute from the desuetude and neglect into which it was allowed to fall, and will secure its enforcement. In the events at hand this statute will be a safeguard of the Republic, and its enforcement here will secure its enforcement everywhere. To the traitor seeking office it will be a touchstone, while, with guardian force, it thrusts away from these Chambers all those brutal enemies, who, for the sake of Slavery, have helped to fill our land with mourning.

On the Yeas and Nays, the vote stood, Yeas 28, Nays 11. So the resolution was adopted.

January 26th Mr. Bayard took the prescribed oath, and on the 29th resigned his seat in the Senate.

January 25th, Mr. Sumner asked, and by unanimous consent obtained, leave to bring in a bill supplementary to an Act entitled “An Act to prescribe an oath of office and for other purposes,” approved July 2, 1862, which was read the first and second times by unanimous consent, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. It provided that no person should be admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, or of any Circuit or District Court of the United States, or of the Court of Claims, as an attorney or counsellor of such court, or should be allowed to appear and be heard in any such court, by virtue of any previous admission or any special power of attorney, unless he should have first taken the oath prescribed by the Act of July 2, 1862.

June 28th, Mr. Trumbull, from the Judiciary Committee, reported adversely on this bill.

December 22d, on motion of Mr. Sumner, the Senate proceeded to consider this bill, and it was passed,—Yeas 27, Nays 4. January 23, 1865, it passed the House of Representatives, and January 24th was approved by the President.