Mr. SUMNER. When Ispoke on that subject I took occasion to show that there was no such case. The Senator is right. There was no such case. It was for our fathers; it was left to them, when they 1st undertook to constitute a new Government, to establish that as the essential and cardinal principle of a republican government. M answer therefore to the Senator is precise: there was no such case. But the true idea of a republican government began with our fathers, and its de nition will be found in their Declaration ofIndependence. Were they not sufficiently precise? Is their language vs ue? You may call it a “glittering generafity, but there it is in an immortal text whose truth will be recognized more and more as time advances. You may not recognize it now, but others who come after you wi recognize it and do it reverence. I say, therefore, that this constitution now before us is reuguant to the principles of the Declaration of7 Independence. I say that the government which it constitutes is not a republican government and now the question is how that difficulty shall be met. I know well that Senators may say, but there are States in the Union that have the same discrimination. Connecticut has it; NewYork has it; but permit me to say that that does not touch the argument at all. We have no occasion now to review the constitution of Connecticut or of NewYork, but we have occasion at this moment in the discharge of a solemn duty to review the constitution of this proposed State. If there were occasion in this Chamber to review under the responsibilities of our official positions the constitution of Connecticut or of NewYork, my course would be clear; it would be to say that that constitution was not republican in orm; but there is no such occasion, and therefore we have no such responsibility. There are other States in this Union with regard to which we have at this moment that resonsibility and I simply now allude to them or illustration and they are the States lately in rebellion; their constitutions have been overthrown or subverted; new constitutions have been set up; and it be comes the solemn duty of Congress to examine those constitutions in order to see whether they are republican in form and not repugnant to the principles of the DeclarIndep. We have in regard to those States precisely the some responsibility at this moment that we have with regard to this new comer, distant Colorado. We must examine the constitutions and see whether OXJIOI. they are in conformity with those sublime principles which enter into the true idea of a repub can government. Again, sir, I submit that at this moment, when the whole country is agitated by the great question, what shall be done for the protection of the colored race, to what extent we shall exercise the high powers of Congress in order to carry that protection into the rebel States, it will hardly be decent for us in reviewing the constitution of a new State not to apply to it the highest possible test. It will not do for us now to recognize this constitution of Colorado as republican in form. We owe it to ourselves to set an example and to require that in a State now organized under our influence a good exampleshall prevail. How many of us heard with reret the result last autumn in Connecticut, on again in Wisconsin, by which suffrage to the colored race was denie. We felt that by those 2 votes liberty had suffered, that an enfranchised race was p need in jeopardy. that its rights were dishonored by those who ought to have upheld them; and now, sir, you have cast upon you in this Chamber that same identical responsibility. You are with reference to this constitution of Colorado in the precise position in which the people of Connecticut were with regard to their own constitution and the people of Wisconsin with regard to theirs. Some of us have regretted poignantly the policy of those 2 States; Ihope there will e no occasion to reret any similar policy in this Chamber. An now, sir, in order to bring the Senate toa vote on that precise question, I send to the Chair an amendment to the bill. the pRESlDENT rotempore. the amendment offered by the Senfrom Massachusetts will be read.