Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/173

Rh Although the people have a right to petition, congress is not bound to waste its time in listening to and in discussing the matter of petitions, on the merits of which that body has already decided. A discretionary power rests in congress to receive, or to reject a petition, at pleasure, the right going no farther than the assembling and petitioning; else would it be in the power of a small proportion of the people to occupy all the time of the national legislature on vexatious and useless questions.

A state has no right to petition congress at all. The legislature of a state has its limited powers as well as congress, and, did the constitution of a particular state include this among the other powers of its legislature, the governing principle of the federal constitution is opposed to it. The right of petition as claimed by a state can do no legitimate good, and may lead to much evil, as a brief examination will show. The federal government acts directly on the people, through agents of its own; for whenever it accepts the agency of a state, the agents of that state are in effect the agents of the general government. Now, the representation in one body of congress, is not a state representation, but it is a representation founded on numbers. As a state, if possessing authority to petition, one state ought to have the weight of another, whereas, in congress, one state has much more influence than another, as the following example will show. The senators of fourteen states may vote for the passage, or the repeal of a law, under the influence of petitions from their several state legislatures, and yet the veto of the representatives of the remaining twelve states shall defeat the measure in the other house. It follows that the states, purely as states, are not so strictly constituents of congress as to claim a right to petition. The danger of the practice is derived from