reception of negro petitions is declared to be a mere act of privilege or policy.  Now it is difficult to imagine a principle more utterly subversive of all the duties of rulers, the rights of citizens, and the charities of private life.  The victim of oppression or fraud has no right to appeal to the constituted authorities for redress; nor are those authorities under any obligation to consider the appeal—­the needy and unfortunate have no right to implore the assistance of their more fortunate neighbors:  and all are at liberty to turn a deaf ear to the cry of distress.  The eternal and immutable principles of justice and humanity, proclaimed by Jehovah, and impressed by him on the conscience of man, have no binding force on the legislature of Ohio, unless expressly adopted and enforced by the State Constitution!

But as the legislature has thought proper thus to set at defiance the moral sense of mankind, and to take refuge behind the enactments of the Constitution, let us try the strength of their entrenchments.  The words of the Constitution, which it is pretended sanction the resolution we are considering are the following, viz.—­“The people have a right to assemble together in a peaceable manner to consult for their common good, to instruct their representatives, and to apply to the legislature for a redress of grievances.”  It is obvious that this clause confers no rights, but is merely declaratory of existing rights.  Still, as the right of the people to apply for a redress of grievances is coupled with the right of instructing their representatives, and as negroes are not electors and consequently are without representatives, it is inferred that they are not part of the people.  That Ohio legislators are not Christians would be a more rational conclusion.  One of the members avowed his opinion that “none but voters had a right to petition.”  If then, according to the principle of the resolution, the Constitution of Ohio denies the right of petition to all but electors, let us consider the practical results of such a denial.  In the first place, every female in the State is placed under the same disability with “blacks and mulattoes.”  No wife has a right to ask for a divorce—­no daughter may plead for a father’s life.  Next, no man under twenty-one years—­no citizen of any age, who from want of sufficient residence, or other qualification, is not entitled to vote—­no individual among the tens of thousands of aliens in the State—­however oppressed and wronged by official tyranny or corruption, has a right to seek redress from the representatives of the people, and should he presume to do so, may be told, that, like “blacks and mulattoes,” he “has no constitutional right to present his petition to the General Assembly for any purpose whatever.”  Again—­the State of Ohio is deeply indebted to the citizens of other States, and also to the subjects of Great Britain for money borrowed to construct her