[Footnote A:  Colonel Young.]

I surely need not stop to vindicate the right of petition.  It is a natural right—­one that human laws can guarantee, but can neither create nor destroy.  It is an interesting fact, that the Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which guarantees the right of petition, was opposed in the Congress of 1789 as superfluous.  It was argued, that this is “a self-evident, inalienable right, which the people possess,” and that “it would never be called in question.”  What a change in fifty years!

You deny the power of Congress to abolish the inter-state traffic in human beings; and, inasmuch as you say, that the right “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states,” does not include the right to prohibit and destroy commerce; and, inasmuch as it is understood, that it was in virtue of the right to regulate commerce, that Congress enacted laws to restrain our participation in the “African slave trade,” you perhaps also deny, that Congress had the power to enact such laws.  The history of the times in which the Federal Constitution was framed and adopted, justifies the belief, that the clause of that instrument under consideration conveys the power, which Congress exercised.  For instance, Governor Randolph, when speaking in the Virginia Convention of 1788, of the clause which declares, that “the migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year 1808,” said, “This is an exception from the power of regulating commerce, and the restriction is to continue only till 1808.  Then Congress can, by the exercise of that power, prevent future importations.”

Were I, however, to admit that the right “to regulate commerce,” does not include the right to prohibit and destroy commerce, it nevertheless would not follow, that Congress might not prohibit or destroy certain branches of commerce.  It might need to do so, in order to preserve our general commerce with a state or nation.  So large a proportion of the cloths of Turkey might be fraught with the contagion of the plague, as to make it necessary for our Government to forbid the importation of all cloths from that country, and thus totally destroy one branch of our commerce with it, to the end that the other branches might be preserved.  No inconsiderable evidence that Congress has the right to prohibit or destroy a branch of commerce, is to be found in the fact, that it has done so.  From March, 1794, to May, 1820, it enacted several laws, which went to prohibit or destroy, and, in the end, did prohibit or destroy the trade of this country with Africa in human beings.  And, if Congress has the power to pass embargo laws, has it not the power to prohibit or destroy commerce altogether?