My only object at this time, is to come to a fair understanding with the House as to the cause to be pursued in the debate, and the disposition it will make of these Petitions.
At a very early period of the session, a gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. HAMMOND) met such petitions with the motion that they be not received. All the debates, which ensued thereon, terminated in evasive and unsatisfactory votes for laying on the table, which left every question of principle unsettled.
Afterwards, on a similar objection to reception being made by a gentleman from Georgia, (Mr. GLASCOCK,) my colleague (Mr. ADAMS) appealed from a ruling of the Speaker on an incidental point of order; which appeal, and the matters connected with it, have been put off, day after day, and week after week, and still remain suspended for some future time of consideration.
Then came a set of resolutions applicable to a part of the prayer of these petitions, moved by a gentleman from Maine, (Mr. JARVIS,) under which there is a debate in progress, on an amendment moved by a gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. WISE,) to the effect that Congress have no power granted by the constitution to legislate on the subject of slavery in this District.
Finally, on the last occasion when petitions of this kind were presented, the question of reception being raised, that question was, by vote of the House, laid on the table; as happened this morning in the case of those petitions presented by my colleague (Mr. ADAMS;) the operation of which is, practically, to refuse to receive the petitions.
Now, I am wholly dissatisfied with this course of proceeding, and I cannot submit to it in regard to the Petitions, which I am charged to present. I hold that the question of reception, as it is in fact and of necessity the first in order of time, so is it the first in order of principle. It must not be pushed aside to make place for the discussion of speculative resolutions, or for debate, on the merits of the question raised by the prayer of these petitions. I maintain that the House is bound by the Constitution to receive the petitions; after which, it will take such method of deciding upon them as reason and principle shall dictate. It should first lend an attentive and respectful ear to the prayer of the People. Whether it can or will grant that prayer, is an after consideration. I have already kept back for several weeks the petitions committed to me, in order to shape my course according to the deliberate decision of the House; but that decision does not come; it is continually procrastinated for the sake of considering questions, which, in my view, are secondary in time and in principle to the question of reception; and I can no longer consent that these my constituents shall be held waiting, as it were, at the doors of the Capitol for admission, when, as I read the Constitution, they have a right to demand immediate entrance, and to be respectfully received by their assembled representatives.
I tender to the House, therefore, an alternative. I place this Petition at their disposal. If they choose to fix absolutely on a time certain for considering and deciding the question of reception, so that this shall take precedence of the other debate, they will then have this day, as usual, for its appropriate business of the general presentation of petitions. But if they decide, as heretofore, to lay the question of reception on the table, then I shall feel myself constrained to take the floor upon another of these Petitions, and to keep it, as under the late decision of the House I have a right to do, until I have fully debated the whole subject-matter. If the effect of this shall be to exclude all other petitions for the day, I cannot help it. Be the responsibility on their heads who raise this novel and extraordinary question of reception, going to the unconstitutional abridgment, as I conceive, of the great right of petition inherent in the People of the United States.
[The question, Shall this petition be received? was then, at the motion of a gentleman from South Carolina, (Mr. HAMMOND) laid on the table; when Mr. CUSHING resumed the floor and said:]
I now present to the House a Petition signed by inhabitants of Amesbury, in the State of Massachusetts, among the subscribers to which are persons whom I know and avouch to be citizens of the United States. They pray for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and in the Territories under the jurisdiction of the United States. I make the preliminary motion that it be received; and, upon that motion, I proceed to express my views to the House.
Steering clear of all the inflammable matter intruded into these debates, gauging myself to the standard of the most absolute moderation, and resolutely tying down my thoughts to the real point in issue, what I propose to examine is the single naked question of the constitutional right of petition, as involved in the disposition of these petitions.