from the city.  It cannot be possible that justice can have been done in both cases.  The exclusive legislation of Congress over the District is as much the act of the constituent body, as the general legislation of Congress over the States, and to the operation of this act have the people within the District submitted themselves.  I cannot, however, join the Senator that the majority, in refusing to receive and refer petitions, did not intend to destroy or impair the right in this particular.  They certainly have done so.

The Senator admits the abolitionists are now formidable; that something must be done to produce harmony.  Yes, sir, do justice, and harmony will be restored.  Act impartially, that justice may be done:  hear petitions on both sides, if they are offered, and give righteous judgments, and your people will be satisfied.  You cannot compromise them out of their rights, nor lull them to sleep with fallacies in the shape of reports.  You cannot conquer them by rebuke, nor deceive them by sophistry.  Remember you cannot now turn public opinion, nor can you overthrow it.  You must, and you will, abandon the high ground you have taken, and receive petitions.  The reason of the case, the argument and the judgment of the people, are all against you.  One in this cause can “chase a thousand,” and the voice of justice will be heard whenever you agitate the subject.  In Indiana, the right to petition has been most nobly advocated in a protest, by a member, against some puny resolutions of the Legislature of that State to whitewash slavery.  Permit me to read a paragraph, worthy an American freeman: 

“But who would have thought until lately, that any would have doubted the right to petition in a respectful manner to Congress?  Who would have believed, that Congress had any authority to refuse to consider the petitions of the people?  Such a step would overthrow the autocrat of Russia, or cost the Grand Seignior of Constantinople his head.  Can it be possible, therefore, that it has been reserved for a republican Government, in a land boasting of its free institutions, to set the first precedent of this kind?  Our city councils, our courts of justice, every department of Government are approached by petition, however unanswerable, or absurd, so that its terms are respectful.  None go away unread, or unheard.  The life of every individual is a perfect illustration of the subject of petitioning.  Petition is the language of want, of pain, of sorrow, of man in all his sad variety of woes, imploring relief, at the hand of some power superior to himself.  Petitioning is the foundation of all government, and of all administrations of law.  Yet it has been reserved for our Congress, seconded indirectly by the vote of this Legislature, to question this right, hitherto supposed to be so old, so heaven-deeded, so undoubted, that our fathers did not think it necessary to place a guaranty of it in the first draft of the Federal Constitution.  Yet this sacred right has been, at one blow, driven, destroyed, and trodden under the feet of slavery.  The old bulwarks of our Federal and State Constitutions seem utterly to have been forgotten, which declare, ’that the freedom of speech and the press shall not be abridged, nor the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition for the redress of their grievances.’”