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