Caleb Cushing

“ The words applicable to our subject are, "Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the People to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The right of petition, therefore, is not a privilege conferred by the Constitution. It is recognised as a pre-existing right, already possessed by the People, which they still reserve to themselves, and which Congress shall not so much as touch with the weight of a finger. ”

“ We are laying the foundations of a government, which we hope may outlast the Pyramids. We know, from old experience, that the depositaries of the popular power are ingenious in the finding of glosses and interpretations to abstract from the popular rights. Let us see to it that this constitution contain such express recognitions of the rights of the People as it shall be impossible to misunderstand. ”

“ The People, in their constitution, say to Congress,—We place in your hands our right and power of collecting a revenue to provide for the common defence and general welfare of the Union; our right and power to regulate commerce, to coin money, to declare war, and to raise and support armies and navies for its prosecution. ”

“ If there be any plausible reason for supposing that we have the right to legislate on the slave interests of the District, you cannot put down the investigation of the subject out of doors, by refusing to receive petitions. On the contrary, you give the petitioners new force and efficiency, by giving them a new cause of complaint and of excitement. Nor do you attain any thing, so far as this House is concerned; for, by shutting out petitions, you do not shut out debate; any member of the House can bring on debate any day, by moving some general resolution applicable to the subject. ”

“ And whilst I entreat of individual members of the House to regard this question in calmness, and conclude it in judgment, as they would any lesser question, I warn and adjure the House itself, as a constituent branch of this government, to beware lest, in deciding this general question of the right of petition, it overleap the bounds prescribed to it by the Constitution.
Men of Virginia, countrymen of Washington, of Patrick Henry, of Jefferson, and of Madison, will ye be true to your constitutional faith? Men of New York, will ye ride over the principles of the democracy ye profess? ”

“ Forbid it, liberty! Forbid it the beatified spirits of the revolutionary sages, who watch in heaven over the destinies of the Republic!
Aye, but, say gentlemen, if such things are not done by the representatives of the People in monarchical England, they have been done by their representatives in democratic America. We are told of precedents at home. ”

“ In all succeeding times, from the day when the barons at Runnymede pledged themselves to deny to no man redress of his grievances, through every vicissitude of revolution and of war, down to the day when our forefathers abandoned their native country, the same right of petition continued without challenge. ”

“ We will write, upon its very front the great doctrines of liberty in characters of light, which, like the burning letters in the banqueting-hall of Belshazzar, may blast the eye-balls of whomever shall meditate treason to the democratic rights we have conquered with our blood and our fortunes. ”

“ It assumes for granted, that the People of the United States are not to be reasoned with; that their opinions can be put down by bold and broad assertions at this or the other end of the Capitol; and that they are not to be trusted with the facts and law of the case. Here, again, as I conceive, gentlemen forget that this government is a republican one, resting exclusively in the intelligence and virtue of the People. ”

“ Men of the West, can ye prove recreant to the spirit of sturdy independence, which carried you beyond the mountains? Men of New England, I hold you to the doctrines of liberty which ye inherit from your Puritan forefathers. ”

“ Accordingly, the convention of Virginia proposed, to amend the Constitution by inserting therein the following, among other clauses:
"That all power is naturally vested in, and consequently derived from, the People; that magistrates, therefore, are their trustees and agents, and at all times amenable to them."
"That the People have a right peaceably to assemble together to consult for the common good, or to instruct their representatives; and that every freeman has a right to petition the Legislature for redress of grievances." ”

“ What has happened here is enrolled already in the unchangeable records of time and of eternity. It is become history. It cannot be recalled; it cannot be blotted from the memory; it cannot be expunged from the annals of the country. ”

“ The Normans came over, lance in hand, burning and trampling down every thing before them, and cutting off the Saxon dynasty and the Saxon nobles at the edge of the sword; but the right of petition remained untouched. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It must not be pushed aside to make place for the discussion of speculative resolutions, or for debate, on the merits of the question raised by the prayer of these petitions. I maintain that the House is bound by the Constitution to receive the petitions; after which, it will take such method of deciding upon them as reason and principle shall dictate. It should first lend an attentive and respectful ear to the prayer of the People. Whether it can or will grant that prayer, is an after consideration. ”

“ Sir, I am a republican; and I desire to see this House observe the principles of that democracy which is ever on the lips of its members, and which, I hope, is in their hearts, as I know and feel it is in mine, and mean it shall be in my conduct. ”

“ Within less than one year after the adoption of the Constitution, there came to Congress petitions, chiefly from New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, and especially from the Society of Friends, praying Congress to suppress the slave trade, and to interpose, in various ways, within the limits of the several States, in the melioration of the condition of the colored population of the South. I have examined the journals giving the record of the proceedings in this House ”

“ The proceedings of this House in 1790, in reference to petitions on the matter of the slave trade, and of slavery in the States, have been cited. It has been said that those petitions were not received. ”

“ Secondly, That Congress have no power to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them, within any of the States: it remaining with the several States alone to provide any regulation therein which humanity and true policy may require. ”

“ Be the responsibility on their heads who raise this novel and extraordinary question of reception, going to the unconstitutional abridgment, as I conceive, of the great right of petition inherent in the People of the United States. ”

“ These our great natural rights we keep to ourselves; we will not have them tampered with; respecting them we give to you no commission whatsoever. ”

“ HOAR) could no longer abstain from the temperate defence of the Constitution and of his fellow-citizens.
In the second place, I do devoutly believe that gentlemen misjudge, if they suppose that agitation out of doors is to be arrested by the quashing of these petitions on their very introduction to this House. With my whole heart I accord in the view of the subject taken some time since by an honorable gentleman from New York, (Mr. HUNT,) and which I know is taken by one of the wisest and most trusted of the statesmen of Virginia, now a member of the other branch of Congress. ”

“ You well know, sir, that when the Constitution was submitted to the People of the respective States for their adoption or rejection, it awakened the warmest debates of the several State conventions. ”

“ Upon the Constitution, upon the pre-existing legal rights of the People, as understood in this country and in England, I have argued that this House is bound to revive the Petition under debate. ”

“ Thirdly, That Congress have authority to restrain the citizens of the United States from carrying on the African slave trade, for the purpose of supplying foreigners with slaves, and of providing, by proper regulations for the humane treatment, during their passage, of slaves imported by the said citizens into the States admitting such importations. ”

“ The winged words uttered in this House have gone forth to the world, on their mission of good or of evil. ”

“ I have already kept back for several weeks the petitions committed to me, in order to shape my course according to the deliberate decision of the House; but that decision does not come; it is continually procrastinated for the sake of considering questions, which, in my view, are secondary in time and in principle to the question of reception ”

“ I declare and protest in advance, that I do not intend, at this time at least; to be drawn or driven into the question of slavery, in either of its subdivisions or forms. ”

“ Sir, allusion has been made, in an early stage of this debate, to the history of the excitement which once pervaded a considerable part of the country, in reference to the transportation of the mails on the Lord's day. ”

“ Entertaining these opinions of the course to be pursued, I beg of gentlemen to look at the question, as I have done, in a calm review of facts and of principles. ”