I declare and protest in advance, that I do not intend, at this time at least; to be drawn or driven into the question of slavery, in either of its s….

The proceedings of this House in 1790, in reference to petitions on the matter of the slave trade, and of slavery in the States, have been cited. It ….

Men of Virginia, countrymen of Washington, of Patrick Henry, of Jefferson, and of Madison, will ye be true to your constitutional faith?.

We are laying the foundations of a government, which we hope may outlast the Pyramids..

When we fled from the oppressions of kings and parliaments in Europe, to found this great Republic in America, we brought with us the laws and the li….

It is impossible, in my mind, to distinguish between the refusal to receive a petition, or its summary rejection by some general order, and the denia….

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….

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 reaso….

Sir, I am a republican; and I desire to see this House observe the principles of that democracy which is ever on the lips of its members, and which, ….

The right of petition is an old undoubted household right of the blood of England, which runs in our veins..

You well know, sir, that when the Constitution was submitted to the People of the respective States for their adoption or rejection, it awakened the ….

Men of New England, I hold you to the doctrines of liberty which ye inherit from your Puritan forefathers..

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….

Here, again, as I conceive, gentlemen forget that this government is a republican one, resting exclusively in the intelligence and virtue of the Peop….

The right of petition, I have said, was not conferred on the People by the Constitution, but was a pre-existing right, reserved by the People out of ….

Upon the Constitution, upon the pre-existing legal rights of the People, as understood in this country and in England, I have argued that this House ….