revive the Petition under debate. 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 denial of the right
of petition. I have no such microscopic eye as to enable me to
discern the point of difference between the two things. This
procedure may be keeping the word to the ear, but it is breaking it
to the sense: and I go upon general, abstract, original, fundamental
principle, the great principle of democratic liberty, which is the
foundation stone of this Republic. It is for the sacred and
inalienable rights of the People that I here contend. I should
regard the exclusion of petitions from the consideration of the
House as a highhanded invasion of the imprescriptible rights of the
Constituency of the country, of whom we are the representatives, not
the dictators; and it is for that reason I take my stand against it
on the very threshold.

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, I hope, is in their hearts, as I know and feel
it is in mine, and mean it shall be in my conduct. This Republic was
called into being, organized, and is upheld, by a great political
doctrine. That doctrine is, that the People alone are supreme; that
they are the fountains of power; that all magistrates are the
delegated agents of the People, for the purposes limited and
prescribed in their letters of appointment, and the general laws of
the land; that the constituents of a member of this House have the
right to give instructions to him individually; and that every
individual one of the People has a right to be heard by petition on
the floor of this House. These are among the things which I
understand to constitute the principles of democracy: those general