Carus invites with a pleasing Air, to give him an Opportunity of doing an Act of Humanity, meets the Petition half Way, and consents to a Request with a Countenance which proclaims the Satisfaction of his Mind in assisting the Distressed.

The humble Petition therefore of many of the most strictly virtuous, and of my self, is, That you'll once more exert your Authority, and that according to your late Promise, your full, your impartial Authority, on this sillier Branch of our Kind: For why should they be the uncontroulable Mistresses of our Fate?

" In the debate, at the same session, May 13th, 1789, on the petition of the Society of Friends respecting the slave trade, Mr. Parker, of Virginia, said, "He hoped Congress would do all that lay in their power to restore to human nature its inherent privileges.

" When the petition on the abolition of the slave trade was under discussion in the Congress of '89, Mr. Brown, of North Carolina, said, "The emancipation of the slaves will be effected in time; it ought to be a gradual business, but he hoped that Congress would not precipitate it to the great injury of the southern States."

BY THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE RIGHT OF PETITION

the freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and the right of petition, are now hated and dreaded by our Southern citizens, as hostile to the perpetuity of human bondage; while, by their political influence in the Federal Government, they have induced numbers at the North to unite with them in their sacrilegious crusade against these inestimable privileges.

On the 28th January last, the House of Representatives, on motion of Mr. Johnson, from Maryland, made it a standing RULE of the House that "no petition, memorial, resolution, or other paper, praying the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or any State or Territory of the United States, in which it now exists, SHALL BE RECEIVED BY THE HOUSE, OR ENTERTAINED IN ANY WAY WHATEVER.

" Thus has the RIGHT OF PETITION been immolated in the very Temple of Liberty, and offered up, a propitiatory sacrifice to the demon of slavery.

In these various outrages, although all action on the petitions was prohibited, the papers themselves were received and laid on the table, and therefore it was contended, that the right of petition had been preserved inviolate.

But the slaveholders, maddened by the failure of all their devices, and fearing the influence which the mere sight of thousands and tens of thousands of petitions in behalf of liberty, would exert, and, taking advantage of the approaching presidential election to operate upon the selfishness of some northern members, have succeeded in crushing the right of petition itself.

The framers of the Federal Constitution supposed the right of petition too firmly established in the habits and affections of the people, to need a constitutional guarantee.

The Virginia convention proposed, as an amendment, "that every freeman has a right to petition, or apply to the Legislature, for a redress of grievances."

The Conventions of New York and of Rhode Island incorporated in their certificates of ratification, the assertion that "Every person has a right to petition or apply to the legislature for a redress of grievances"using the Virginia phraseology, merely substituting the word person for freeman, thus claiming the right of petition even for slaves; while Virginia and North Carolina confined it to freemen.

The Conventions of New York and of Rhode Island incorporated in their certificates of ratification, the assertion that "Every person has a right to petition or apply to the legislature for a redress of grievances"using the Virginia phraseology, merely substituting the word person for freeman, thus claiming the right of petition even for slaves; while Virginia and North Carolina confined it to freemen.

The first Congress, assembled under the Constitution, gave effect to the wishes thus emphatically expressed, by proposing, as an amendment, that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition Government for a redress of grievances.

" This amendment was duly ratified by the States, and when members of Congress swear to support the Constitution of the United States, they are as much bound by their oath to refrain from abridging the right of petition, as they are to fulfil any other constitutional obligation.

And will the slaveholders and their abettors, dare to maintain that they have not foresworn themselves, because they have abridged the right of the people to petition for a redress of grievances, by a RULE of the House, and not by a law?

" The right to petition is one thing, and the disposition of a petition after it is received, is another.

" The right to petition is one thing, and the disposition of a petition after it is received, is another.

And by what authority are the people deprived of their right to petition for any object which a majority of either House of Congress, for the time being, may please to regard as unconstitutional?

Should our Northern Manufacturers again presume to ask Congress to protect them from foreign competition, the Southern members will find a precedent, sanctioned by Northern votes, for a rule that "no petition, memorial, resolution, or other paper, praying for the IMPOSITION OF DUTIES FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF MANUFACTURES, shall be received by the House, or entertained in any way whatever.

He was in favor of committing the petition, and justified the measure by repeated precedents in the proceedings of the House.

Suffer us to recall to your recollection the majorities by which the successive attempts to crush the right of petition and the freedom of debate have been carried.

But in Minnesota in 1878 it was enacted that as soon as any one of the little square townships in that state should contain as many as twenty-five legal voters, it might petition the board of county commissioners and obtain a township organization, even though, the adjacent townships in the same county should remain under county government only.

Our route brought us through Murnies, celebrated for its orange groves and for the horrible execution of many Cretans by Mustapha Kiritly in the "great insurrection"that of 1837to punish them for assembling to petition the Sultan for relief.