The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 1: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session Page: 203

                                
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lumbia should be the boundary; adding, however,
that, as they must confess there was not a single
good harbor from latitude forty-two to the mouth of
the Columbia, they would cede to the United States
the harbor of Port Discovery, in Fuca's inlet, to-
gether with a small rocky isthmusj lying southeast
fiom Cape Flattery. I know not whether the name
of the cape suggested the selection of this particular
spot; but Captain "VVilkes informs me he would not
give a hundred dollars for the whole tract. It ex-
cludes Admiralty inlet and Puget sound, one of the
best harbors in the world, and not unlikely, some
day, to be the principal port of entry for the Colum-
bia valley.
The offer of Great Britain was, of course, re-
fused; and so terminated the second attempt at ne-
gotiation. Do you find, in its details or m its re-
sult, much encouragement to engage in a third?
This negotiating about what does not belong to
us, is not only an unprofitable but a dangerous af-
fair. We offer to concede- and to compromise.
Wc forbesr to claim our just due. And straightway
our concessions and forbearance are set ap as foun-
dation for a title, which has no other groundto rest
upon. I know that, in strictness of law, a valid
title is not prejudiced by an offer to compromise,
made for the sake of peace. I am aware that the
permission granted by treaty to Great Britain, joint-
ly with us to occupy this territory, cannot ripen
into a title. Yet, in point of fact, a concession ever
weakens a claim. It has already done so in this
very case. Mark, sir, I pray you,' the admission
made by Albert Gallatin, in his official conference
with the British plenipotentiaries. I find it in his
reply to Mr. Clay, as follows:
"Our never having refused to agree to a line of
demarcation with Great Britain xoas u sufficient proof
that we admitted that she also had claims which de-
served, and to which we paid, due consideration. It
was on that account that the United States had re-
duced tile extent of their own to the boundary line
they had offered, and had added to it the proposal of
allowing to British subjects the free navigation of the
Columbia."
Is that plain, sir? That we agreed to negotiate,
says Mr. Gallatin to the British minister, proves
that we admit you have some title; and therefore,
for that reason, because we have been weak enough
to negotiate with you for our own, the United States
offer you upwards of a hundred millions of acres
of their territory to keep peace, and say nothing
more about it.
Our own most enlightened statesmen are sometimes,
for the moment, led off from the true issue, by this
temporizing diplomacy. At the last session of Con-
gress, a distinguished senator from South Carolina,
now no longer a member of the body which for so
many years he had graced by his severe and logical
eloquence, made a remarkable declaration. I read from
the speech of Mr. Calhoun, delivered in the Senate.
After stating that we had proposed to Great Britain
the forty-ninth parallel, and she had in return of-
fered us the Columbia river, entering the Pacific
about latitude forty-six, as a boundary, Mr. Cal-
houn adds:
"It follows that the portion of territory really in
dispute between the two countries is about three de-
grees of latitude; that is, about one-fourth of the
whole."
Do you perceive, whither all this tends? We are
placed in a false position—
Mr. GILMER asked Mr. Owen, as the hour de-
voted to the reception of reports had nearly expired,
to give way to a motion to commit the subject to the
Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union,
where the discussion, which he thought very im-
portant, might proceed unchecked by the expiration
of the hour.
Some conversation ensued, in which Messrs.
GILMER, OWEN, A. V. BROWN, CHARLES
J. INGERSOLL, DIIOMGOOLE,' SAMPLE,
BLACK, and others, took part.
The resolution was then committed to the Com-
mittee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and
was ordered to be printed.
Mr. OWEN moved that the House resolve itscit
into a Committee of the Whole on the state of the
Union. . , ,.
After a conversation on the propriety of this mo-
tion at this time, in which Messrs. ADAMS, WIN-
THROP, RATHBUN, and others, took part,
Mr, OWEN changed the form of his motion, and
moved a suspension of the rules to enable him to
jnske the motion previously dssipat«4>
MA ADAMS called for the yeas and flays on the
motion to suspend the rules; and they were ordered;
and, being taken, resulted thus—yeas'lll, nays 63.
So the rules were not suspended.
Mr. DAVIS of Indiana, by leave granted, offer-
ed the following resolution; which was agreed to: .
Resolved, That the use of this hall be granted, on
the evening of the 24th instant, to the managers of
the New \ ork State Institution for the Blind, for the
purpose of exhibiting the proficiency of the pupils
in the academic and mechanic arts.
Mr. McCLERNAND, from the Committee on
Public Lands, made a report; which was laid upon
the table.
Mr. ADAMS called for the order of the day; and
the House then proceeded to the order, being—
THE REPORT ON THE RULES.
Mr. SAUNDERS being possession. of the floor,
Sroceeded to address the House, in continuation of
is speech commenced on a former day; but his first
remarks were not distinctly heard by the reporter.
He desired to call the attention of gentlemen to the
resolution which had been submitted by the gentle-
man from Massachusets, [Mr. Adams,] coming, as
the gentleman said, from the democratic legislature
of his own State; which resolution had been referred
to a committee. The members of the last Congress
had not forgotten a petition which was introduced
by the gentleman from Massachusetts—the petition
of George Latimer, a runaway slave from Virginia.
The gentleman, with great benevolence of purpose,
proposed that the doors of this House should be
thrown open for the reception of petitions from run-
away negroes, while he had so little regard for the
rights of property that he was wholly unwilling that
a man should have his property restored to him.
This course might accord with the gentleman's
views of right, but it did not with his. To trace
that petition a little farther: Having received a fa-
vorable hearing here, it next finds its way to the
legislature of Massachusetts, and is then referred to
a select committee, at the head of which stood the
gentleman's own son, using the very same argu-
ments which the gentleman had used here. He
would trace the matter a little further, and see where
the proposition originally came from. Gentlemen
could not have forgotten the memorable convention
which took place during the late war in the State of
Massachusetts, which afterwards sat in Hartford, in
Connecticut. They liad not forgotten the delibera-
tions of that convention, nor the result to which
they were brought. During the darkest period of
the war, that convention assembled, and came to the
conclusion similar to the proposition now maintain-
ed by the gentleman from Massachusetts—that the
constitution ought to be amended, by destroying the
very basis on which it rests.
He demanded of his friends of the North wheth-
er they supposed they could silence the clamor out
of doors about petitions, by merely receiving and
laying them upon the table? He would tell them no.
They would have to bring their minds to meet the
question. There were two points involved—one re-
ception, the other action. If they were prepared
for this latter alternative, then let them receive the
petitions; but if they were not prepared to act upon
them, then let them not be received. In conculsion,
he appealed to his northern friends, who had stood
by the South; he asked why should they yield now.
He asked his friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. Bui-
lack] why he should now yield ground upon this
question. ' ,
Mr. BIDLACK observed that he had already
given his reasons.
Mr. SAUNDERS. Why should gentlemen now
yield the ground which they had hitherto occupied?
If they had been right heretofore, they were right
now. But if they were to be deprived of their aux-
iliaries of the North, still he turned with confidence
to the wish and—
The falling of the Speaker's hammer announced
that the hour allotted to the gentleman from North
Carolina had expired.
Mr. WINTHROP next obtained the floor, and
addressed the House.
They had been occupied for several days of tins
session (he said) in the discussion of a question
concerning personal liberty under the habeas corpus;
and during the discussion upon that subject, opinions
were expressed, and doctrines advanced, which were
somewhat extraordinary; and the House had beeen
also, for many days, occupied during the morning
hour, in the consideration of another great principle
of civil lib«rty_tht right of pedt><m-*-a a  «
subject, a'80! otfimons, haftIjfeea
trines advanced, which ifrerg to
strange and startling. '
The idea that,the right of petition includes:; .$0:
right whatever to have- the petition received," {tijd
that the right of appeal to the government fora re-,
dress of grievances involves no .duty on .the pari of
the government to redress those grievances^ 'ap-
peared to him to: be-without foundation in re&scBK •
The doctrine advanced then, that, th^rigjhi
tition was only intended to secure to indivldualsor
assemblages of individuals the right tosigir apapcr
setting forth the grievances under which, they suf-
fered, and the redress they asked, and Tyai tlbf ill-;'
tended to include any obligation or duty wKaleyer '
on the part of those to whom their prayer was M-'
dressed to give to it any sort ofconsideraiidhiir-enteK
tainment, was, in his estimation, about as sound a"
doctrine as to contend that the writ of habeas' cor-
pus was not intended to include any obligation on
the part of the officer to whom it was addressed to
execute it, nor to include any obligation on the part
of the government by whose authority it was issued
to enforce obedience to it, but only designed to se-
cure to the citizen the "privilege of having the writ
signed and sealed, to amuse himself with m his con-
finement ! The doctrine seemed about as reasona-
ble as to contend that the freedom of the press only
extended to its mechanical enginery;" that it only se-
cured to individusd printers the right to set up and
strike off matter, but not to publish it. In a, word,
if the right of petition be nothing more than was
represented by some gentleman m that House, it
seemed to him to be the most absurd pretence;'the
most miserable mockery; the most unmeaning,"
empty, worthless abstraction that was ever dignified
by the name of a right; and the sooner it was ex-
punged from the roll of civil rights and liberties—the
sooner it ceased to hold out a promise to the ear to
be broken to the hope, the sooner, would the people
be able to understand what their real rights and
privileges were.
The question before the House was, whether this
rule, which had obtained a most odions character
diiring the 27th Congress, and which had lost noth-
ing of its odium or offensiveness, should be contin-
ued during the 28th Congress. What was the rule?
It was a rule providing that no petition, memorial,
resolution, or other paper, upon certain enumerated
subjects, should be received by the House, or en- :
tertained in any way whatever. He eared not what
the enumerated subjects might be—that was wholly
unimportant—the principle of the rule_was the same,
whatever they might be; if the House had a right to
declare that they would receive no petition on one
subject to-day, they might declare to-morrow that
they would receive none on another subject; and the
third day that they would receive no petition at alj
on any subject. The real inquiry then was, had
they a rigKt to dictate to those who sent them to
that House, the particular subjects on which they
might ask to be heard? Was it within their prerog-
ative to say to the people of the United States, Gen-
tlemen, you may assemble yourselves together, if
you please, consider of your causes of complaint,
sign your petitions, pass your resolutions-either m ,
primary meetings or legislative assemblies; put if
those petitions and those resolutions make any
allusion to this, that, or the other topics,, we
will not hear them. Was this within the preroga-
tive of the legislative assembly of this republic? xle
held such a right to be utterly incompatible with
the relations which subsisted between that House
and the people, and in conflict with the express pro-
visions of the constitution—nay, nore, as trenching
upon the original, inherent, inalienable rights of he
people of the United States.
Mr W. then went on, in reply to Messrs. Saunt-
ers of North Carolina, and Bei.ser of Alabama, to
argue that the right of petition, as claimed by the
abolitionists, was a constitutional right, and was m
tended as such by the framers of the constitution;
and in the course of his argument, cited various
portions of English history to show that the right
had always been, with a few exceptions, recognised
in that country- , ,,
The honorable gentleman was cut short by the
expiration of the morning hour.
AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION—SLAVE
REPRESENTATION.
Mr ADAMS asked permission to present ape-
ries of resolutions of the Legislature of'Massachu-
setts, on the same subject as some others, which
•wert? presented some short tiro? «f°>  n <*vor °  "1