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able member from Alabama; let us have the present rule or I would only reverse the order of the alternatives, and say, let us have no rule, or let this rule stand as it is.

none.

But, says the gentleman from South Carolina, (Mr. Rhett,) where does this duty to consider a petition terminate? How much consideration do you claim? If you demand to have your petitions received, and heard, and considered, why not to have them referred, why not to have them reported on, why not to have them granted? Now, sir, I readily admit that it is diffi cult to lay down, in advance, the precise line of demarcation between the right of petition and the right of legislation; to say exactly where the one ends and the other begins; or to fix the precise measure of consideration which will fulfil the one, with out infringing on the other. But this difficulty does not prevent our confounding the plainest and most obvious distinctions. It was well said by Mr. Burke, in one of his speeches or essays, that "though no man can draw a stroke between the confines of night and day, yet darkness and light are, upon the whole, tolerably distinguishable." So, here, though it may puzzle us to put down in black and white the exact boundary line between the right of the petitioner and the right of the legislator, yet the consideration of a prayer, and the granting of a prayer, are, 66 upon the whole, tolerably distinguishable." Indeed, there is no degree, no gradation, no middle term, between the two ideas. But why, why all this metaphysical subtlety as to a certain class of petitions? You do not refuse to receive other petitions, lest you should be ensnared into some unavoidable obligation to grant them. Heaven knows that there are adverse reports enough made and adopted in this House, in reference to petitions which we uniformly receive and consider. Petitions for pensions; petitions for the allowance of the most just claims; petitions for the payment of the most undeniable debts; why, Sir, we make no bones of despatching a hundred of them in a morning, on a private bill day. Whence, then, all this anxiety and alarm, lest the reception of the petitions enumerated in the rule under debate should precipitate us upon some irresistible necessity to grant their prayer?

Mr. Speaker, we ask for these petitions only that will

you

treat them as you treat other petitions. We set up for them no absurd or extravagant pretensions. We claim for them no exclusive or engrossing attention. We desire only that you will adopt no proscriptive and passionate course in regard to them. We demand only that you will allow them to go through the same orderly round of reception, reference, and report, with all other petitions. When they have gone through that round, they will be just as much under your own control as they were be. fore they entered on it.

I heartily hope, Sir, that this course is now about to be adopted. I hope it as an advocate of the right of petition. I hope it as a Northern man with Northern principles, if you please to term me so. But I hope it not less as an American citizen with American principles; as a friend to the Constitution and the Union; as one who is as little disposed to interfere with any rights of other States, as to surrender any rights of his own State; as one who, though he may see provisions of the Constitution which are odious in principle and unjust in practice provisions which he would gladly have had omitted at the outset, and gladly see altered now, if such an alteration were practicable, is yet willing to stand by our Constitution as it is, our Union as it is, our Territory as it is! I do honestly believe that the course of this House in relation to these petitions has done more than all other causes combined to bring the Constitution into disregard and the Union into danger. Other causes have indeed coöperated with this cause. Your arbitrary and oppressive State laws for imprisoning our free colored seamen in the Southern ports; your abhorrent proposals to annex Texas to the Union, in violation of the compromises of the Constitution; yes, Sir, of those very compromises on which Adams and Hancock met Jefferson and Madison, (to use language which was employed in casting reproach upon the resolutions of Massachusetts which were recently presented here;) these laws and these proposals have unquestionably coöperated of late with the denial of the right of petition, in exciting in some quarters a spirit of discontent with our existing system. But this rule of the House has been the original spring of the whole feeling. And to what advantage on the part of those by whom it was

devised? Have Southern institutions been any safer since its establishment? Have the enemies to those institutions been rendered any less ardent or less active by it? Has agitation on the subject of slavery in this Hall been repressed or allayed by it? Have these petitions and resolutions been diminished in number under its operation and influence? No, Sir, the very reverse, the precise opposite of all this, has been the result. The attempt of this House to suppress and silence all utterance on the subject of slavery in this Hall, has terminated as did the attempt of one of the Kings of ancient Judah to suppress the warnings of the prophet of God. The prophet, we are told, took another roll, and wrote on it all the words which the King had burned in the fire, and "there were added besides unto them many like words!" And this always has been, and always will be, the brief history of every effort to silence free inquiry and stifle free discussion. I thank Heaven that it is so. It is this inherent and inextinguishable elasticity of opinion, of conscience, of inquiry, which, like the great agent of modern art, gains only new force, fresh vigor, redoubled powers of progress and propulsion, by every degree of compression and restraintit is this, to which the world owes all the liberty it has yet acquired, and to which it will owe all that is yet in store for it. Well did John Milton exclaim, in his noble defence of unlicensed printing, "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely, above all liberties;" for, in securing that, we secure the all-sufficient instrument for achieving all other liberties.

NOTE.

THE proceedings of the House of Commons in the case of Skinner and the East India Company, as they stood upon the Journals before they were expunged by the order of the King, are inserted, as follows, in the appendix to the third volume of Hatsell's Precedents, (London edition, 1818.)

Die Sabbati, 4° Decembris, 1669.

The House then, according to former order, resumed the debate of the matter concerning trials and privileges in Parliament.

The Ilouse of Commons being informed that Sir Samuel Bernardiston, commoner of England, has been called before the House of Lords, and hath had a judgment passed upon him, and a fine imposed, and a record made thereof in the Exchequer, mentioning the fine to be paid:

Resolved, &c., That a conference be desired of the Lords upon the matter aforesaid, and other proceedings relating thereunto; and, also, upon the proceedings concerning Thomas Skinner and the East India Company.

Resolved, &c., That a Committee be appointed to prepare and draw up reasons, to be insisted upon at the conference to be had with the Lords touching the matter aforesaid, namely: Mr. Solicitor-General, Mr. Sergeant Maynard, &c.; and the special care of this matter is recommended to Mr. Solicitor-General, Sir Robert Howard, and Sir Thomas Lee.

Die Martis, 7° Decembris, 1669.

Ordered, That the report of Sir Robert Howard, from the committee appointed to prepare reasons to be used at the conference with the Lords, be heard this day, next after the report from the Committee of Elections.

Sir Robert Howard reports from the committee appointed to prepare and bring in reasons to be insisted upon at the conference to be had with the Lords, in the matter relating to the East India Company and Skinner and Sir Samuel Bernardiston, that the committee had met according to the commands of the House, and had taken deliberate consideration of the whole matter; but found they were disabled to prepare reasons without a groundwork of some particular heads agreed by the House, to the justification whereof the reasons might be applied; and that the committee had prepared some heads, drawn up into five

several resolves, which he read in his place, and tendered to the House for their approbation; and the same being again read, are as followeth, namely:

1. That it is an inherent right of every commoner of England, to prepare and present petitions to the House of Commons, in case of grievance, and the House of Commons to receive the same.

2. That it is the undoubted right and privilege of the House of Commons to judge and determine, touching the nature and matter of such petitions, how far they are fit or unfit to be received.

3. That no court whatsoever hath power to judge or censure any petition prepared for or presented to the House of Commons, and received by them, unless transmitted from thence, or the matter complained of by them.

4. Whereas a petition by the Governor and Company of Merchants trading to East India was presented to the House of Commons by Sir Samuel Bernardiston and others, complaining of grievances therein; which the Lords have censured under the notion of a scandalous paper or libel; that the said censure and proceedings of the Lords against the said Sir Samuel Bernardiston are contrary to, and in subversion of the rights and privileges of the House of Commons, and liberties of the Commons of England.

5. That the continuance upon record of the judgment given by the Lords, and complained of by the House of Commons, in the last session of this Parliament, in the case of Thomas Skinner and the East India Company, is prejudicial to the rights of the Commoners of England.

Ordered, That the report delivered in by Sir Robert Howard be taken into consideration, the first business to-morrow morning.

Die Mercurii, 8° Decembris, 1669.

The House then resumed the consideration of the report of Sir Robert Howard, of the heads and proposals brought in from the Committee appointed to draw up reasons to be insisted on at the conference to be had with the Lords in the matter concerning the East India Company and Skinner and Sir Samuel Bernardiston.

The first head was twice read, and, with the addition of the word "of," upon the question, agreed to.

The second head was read twice; and, with the alteration of the word "retain" for "receive," upon the question, agreed.

The third proposition was twice read, and some amendments made thereto. The question being put, to agree to this proposition —

The House divided.

The nocs went out.

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