§ 1886. The remaining clause secures "the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
§ 1887. This would seem unnecessary to be expressly provided for in a republican government, since it results from the very nature of its structure and institutions. It is impossible, that it could be practically denied, until the spirit of liberty had wholly disappeared, and the people had become so servile and debased, as to be unfit to exercise any of the privileges of freemen.[1]
§ 1888. The provision was probably borrowed from the declaration of rights in England, on the revolution of 1688, in which the right to petition the king for a redress of grievances was insisted on; and the right to petition parliament in the like manner has been provided for, and guarded by statutes passed before, as well as since that period.[2] Mr. Tucker has indulged himself in a disparaging criticism upon the phraseology of this clause, as savouring too much of that style of condescension, in which favours are supposed to be- ↑ See 2 Lloyd's Debates, 197, 198, 199.
- ↑ See 1 Black. Comm. 143; 5 Cobbett's Parl'y. Hist. p. 109, 110; Rawle on Const. ch. 10, p. 124; 3 Amer. Museum, 420; 2 Kent's Comm. Lect. 24, p. 7, 8.
glide into the opinion, that a measure is universally deemed unconstitutional, because it is so in their own opinion, especially if it has become unpopular. It has been often asserted, by public men, as the universal sense of the nation, that this act was unconstitutional; and that opinion has been promulgated recently, with much emphasis, by distinguished statesmen; as we have already had occasion to notice. What the state of public and professional opinion on this subject now is, it is, perhaps, difficult to determine. But it is well known, that the opinions then deliberately given by many professional men, and judges, and legislatures, in favour of the constitutionality of the law, have never been retracted. See Vol. III. §§ 1288, 1289, and note.
vol. iii.94
