repose in you by virtue of our constitution. But this you shall not
do:--you shall not, until after the expiration of twenty years,
prohibit the migration or importation of such persons as we think
proper to admit; you shall not pass any bill of attainder; you shall
not lay any tax or duty on exports; and you shall make no law
prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or abridging the freedom
of speech or of the press; or the right of the People peaceably to
assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances.
These our great natural rights we keep to ourselves; we will not
have them tampered with; respecting them we give to you no
commission whatsoever. And rights which Congress itself, the entire
Legislature, consisting of the President, the Senate, and the House,
acting in their combined functions in the enactment of a law, is
forbidden to abridge,--can this House alone undertake, by a mere
resolution or vote, practically to deny, abolish, and destroy? Sir,
if we can successfully do it, I have greatly misconceived the
democratic ancestry, the democratic principles, and the democratic
energy of the People, whom we are appointed to serve in this House.

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 the grants of power made to Congress. To understand
its nature and extent we must, therefore, look beyond and behind the
Constitution, into the anterior political history of the country.

And, in the first place, I beg of the House, and especially of the
gentlemen who so ably represent Virginia on this floor, to remember
how this article found its way into the Constitution.

You well know, sir, that when the Constitution was submitted to the