Entertaining these opinions of the course to be pursued, I beg of gentlemen to look at the question, as I have done, in a calm review of facts and of principles.  They deprecate all agitation unfriendly to the peace and reciprocal good-will of the different sections of the country.  So do I, most heartily; and in my own humble sphere I have earnestly exerted myself to this end.  And I do, unwillingly but decidedly, avow my conviction, derived from abundant personal observation, that it is not by the summary suppression of petitions, it is not by Lynching this or any other petition, that tranquillity is to be restored, and harmony assured, either in the South or the North.  And whilst I entreat of individual members of the House to regard this question in calmness, and conclude it in judgment, as they would any lesser question, I warn and adjure the House itself, as a constituent branch of this government, to beware lest, in deciding this general question of the right of petition, it overleap the bounds prescribed to it by the Constitution.

Men of Virginia, countrymen of Washington, of Patrick Henry, of Jefferson, and of Madison, will ye be true to your constitutional faith?  Men of New York, will ye ride over the principles of the democracy ye profess?  Men of the West, can ye prove recreant to the spirit of sturdy independence, which carried you beyond the mountains?  Men of New England, I hold you to the doctrines of liberty which ye inherit from your Puritan forefathers.  And if this House is to be scared, by whatever influences, from its duty, to receive and hear the petitions of the People, then I shall send my voice beyond the walls of this Capitol for redress.  To the People I say, Your liberties are in danger; they, whom you have chosen to be your representatives, are untrue to their trust; come ye to the rescue; for the vindication of your right of petition, to you I appeal; to you, the People who sent us here, whose agents we are, to whom we shall return to render a reckoning of our stewardship, and who are the true and only sovereigns in this Republic.