The Liberator

Denial by Congress of the Slaves' Right to Petition.

We will not stop to prosecute the curious antiquarian and geographical research for the age and nation in which a despotic government has ever, before, denied, to any portion of its subjects, the privilege of praying to itself for relief. We recollect a monarch who once prohibited the presentation of a petition to any other power; but do not recollect that even he denied to his meanest vassals, the privilege of asking a favor at his own hands! But let us compare, for a single moment, the two positions our House of Representatives have taken in the resolutions just recorded.

In the resolution last quoted, they have virtually given to the nation and to the world, their own definition of an AMERICAN SLAVE. He is one who may not even ask the mercy of the government under which he lives! Asia herself will recoil with horror at the definition.

But what next ?

In the resolution first quoted, the same body have virtually given to the nation and to the world, their own definition of an AMERICAN CITIZEN! He is one who is told, beforehand, by his government, that any request he may make on a subject the government sees fit to interdict, will neither be read nor printed, referred, considered, or acted upon, in any manner whatever !

We ask now for the distinction made by our rulers, between their own most fearful definition of an American SLAVE, and their practical definition of an American FREEMAN ?

The slave may petition for nothing. The freeman may be heard on any subject which the government does not think proper to prohibit!

'The petition of the slave may not be granted, nor acted upon, nor considered, nor read, nor even laid on the table. The petition of the freeman, in like manner, may not be granted, nor acted upon, nor considered, nor even read:-

But it may be laid on the table!

The American Congress, therefore, by their own definitions, have furnished the nation and the world with the precise distinction, in their view, between an American freeman and an American slave. The freeman is one whose petition, which cannot be granted, nor considered, nor read, may lie, in a certain place, on a certain piece of wood, called a table! The slave is one whose petition, in all other respects treated just like the petition of the freeman, cannot lie upon the piece of wood aforesaid!

Marvellous distinction! So long as the American Congress graciously permits the petition of freemen to lay upon a piece of plank before them, let it never be said that American freemen are in danger of being reduced to a level with American slaves!

On presentation of a petition praying that Congress would extend to all the inhabitants of the District of Columbia, the protection of the principles solemnly professed before heaven and earth, in the Declaration of Independence, as our national creed, the House deliberately decided that the petition came under the rule against abolition petitions, although neither the words slave, slavery, abolition, or emancipation, were contained in it! The identity of abolitionism with the foundation principle of the national government, was therefore deliberately settled and recognised by the House of Representatives; and the recognition was given in the same act which forbade a petition to be read, printed, considered, or acted upon, for the openly alleged reason that it was a petition in favor of those principles!

—Annual Report of the N. Y. State A. S. Society.