In the next
reign, it is true, that of the misguided Charles I, the king invaded
the public liberties; and he expiated the wrong, as he merited, by a
felon's death. After the Commonwealth had passed away, came the
petition of right, and with it the statute of the 13 Charles II,
distinctly recognising the old right of petition, and regulating the
mode of its exercise; and again, after the dethronement and exile of
James II, the Bill of Rights and the statute of I William and Mary,
again recognising and regulating the right of petition as it has
been exercised at all times throughout Great Britain.
Now, I ask gentlemen to point me, in all or any of the periods under
review, to the precedents of a refusal by Parliament to receive
petitions. I invite them to turn over the histories of parliamentary
proceeding, and cite me the examples of petitions being thrust out
of the House of Commons or of Lords, at the instant of presentation,
on the ground that the prayer of the petition ought not to be
granted. Will they do it? Can they do it? Is it not perfectly
notorious, on the contrary, that every subject is freely admitted to
be heard in his petition, provided it be respectful in terms, even
although he pray expressly for a downright revolution in the
government, as did the thousands of petitioners who thus carried
through, in our own time, the great measure of parliamentary reform?
And shall the People in republican America, with its written
constitution for the protection of the public rights, and by a body
of strictly limited powers,--shall the People here be forbidden to
do that which they may freely do in the monarchy of England, having
no guaranties for the public liberty except laws and prescriptive
usages, all of them confessedly at the will of an omnipotent
Parliament? Forbid it, reason! Forbid it, justice! 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.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27