Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1846-07-25

marches entirely out of its line when II in any
ner interferes with them. To do SO i. 81,
usurpation--a high invasion not only of whsM
longs to the Legislative function, but Of am id
sble privilege Of the People, in regard to tleiis
more immediate and special agents. Betweeni
and their constituents, the Executive canno, INF
matter be one instant allowed to come.
Being thing thus fundamental then, to all
Governments, il is from the right of petitioA,
trammelled and unchecked, that Legislatures y
learn /" what's o'clock among the People. MOI
indeed, is il much less indispensable and general in
despotisms themselves wherever they stop short a
that utterly inhuman kind which acknowledges
Their obligation nor wish to take any note OF 4a
wants or the wrongs Of their vassals. Eve
Caliphs, and Sutans, and Schahs have maintained
appointed forms for receiving petitions, and con-
slider the lowest supplicant, who approaches them
in that wise, entitled to be heard without their Join
ing to the rejection Of his prayer that unnecessary
opprobrium of his person which the Union our
government paper, heaps upon these merchants and
Mr.. Senator WEBSTER. Certainly, at times, in
Turkey, Persia, or Morocco, when the desPot is
more than Usually careless or cruel, petitioners may
fall into the hands of some insolent mental, some
dwarf or heartless eunuch of the palace; and then
they fare, of good deal as if they brought
their memorials to Washington.
Not only in tyrannies themselves are petitions
thus endured, but the wretch aggrieved has often
been borne with, when made bold by distress, he
has pressed his suit beyond all the bounds of re-
spect. II is said of one monarch that fatigued with
applicants for redress, he at last told poor man
q that he had no time to attend to so many"
"Then," replied the supplicant, you have no time
to be king" OF another it is related that ne re-
ceved and rejected an old woman's petition, when
las she perceived) he was not master of himself.
:" appeal ~ cried she I" To whom do you APP
peal, my good woman p asked he. 81 appeal from
Philip drunk, to Philip SOBER The king exam
ined her case afresh and granted what she claimed
In the country from whose ideas SO large part
of our own have sprung, this great popular right
first took that selfderived, that nexpugnable form
which is proper to it, and in which it subsiss among
ourselves, as thing which Governments did not
give and cannot take away-as right inseparable
from that Of being epresented-hgher than consti-
tutions themselves for they may be changed, but
IL is unalterable-they can survive blow, while
this right will not suffer touch. We know not
! its date in England for we know not when repre-
sentative assemblies, of which it is an organic and
indyisibIe element, first arose. There, neither in
vason nor the violence of conquest itself has been
able to uproot it. The immediate havoc of the
Normans past, it made itself an imprescrphble part
of even their foreign law soon as they attempted
to settle one. The most arbitrary OF the Tudors,
the mos. impudent of the Smarts, never venured to
call question this great privilege by any conduct
or language half as disparagng half as unit to be
borne, as that with which the organs of this our
Executive are now assailing it here.
1t is true that we have had among ourselves an
agtating contest (now happily allayed) as to the
mode of exercising this very right Of Petition, OF
rather as to the objects to which it could be applied.
Here however, the case was totally different: for,
in the first place, the right itself was not for an in
slant called into question but the dispute in reality
was, whether or not petitions were legally such,
when, passing beyond their correlative and subject,
the actual grievances Of those petitionng, they dis
turbed or aimed at the guaranteed rights of others.
And, secondly, and infinitely more, il was there a
debate between those who have a right to debate
this great matter, exclusively their own-between
the People and their Representatives othe Execu-
tive power totally alien to the thing, and whose
interference with it is to be suffered, did not
venture in the slightest degree to mix himself where
he could only derogate fatally from both the People
and the Legislature.
| Until the present moment, then, we are without
an example of this sort of Executive attack upon
the sacredness of the Right of Petition. Hereto
fore, power, however imperious, has at least been
wise enough never to violate even by word the
religious respect in which our race have immemo-
rally held this refuge of the wronged this weapon
less help of the weak, that strong it is, wounds
not even tyrants, except in the ears.
THE DEBATE IN THE SENATE
On the bill to break down the Tariff continues with