But we shall not fully appreciate the force and value of this
provision, if we stop at this point of the investigation. The right
of petition is an old undoubted household right of the blood of
England, which runs in our veins. When we fled from the oppressions
of kings and parliaments in Europe, to found this great Republic in
America, we brought with us the laws and the liberties, which formed
a part of our heritage as Britons. We brought with us the idea and
the form of our legislative assemblies, composed of elected
representatives of the people; we brought with us the right of
petition, as the necessary incident of such institutions. For when,
in the whole history of our father-land, has the right of petition
ever undergone debate and question? Go back to the old parliamentary
rolls, coeval with Magna Charta; peruse the black-letter volumes in
which the early laws and practices of the English monarchy are seen
to be recorded; and so far as you find a government to exist, you
find the right to petition that government existing also as an
undeniable franchise and birthright of the humblest in the land. 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. 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.
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