Caleb Cushing

Be the responsibility on their heads who raise this novel and extraordinary question of reception, going to the unconstitutional abridgment, as I…

— Caleb Cushing

We are laying the foundations of a government, which we hope may outlast the Pyramids.

— Caleb Cushing

I declare and protest in advance, that I do not intend, at this time at least; to be drawn or driven into…

— Caleb Cushing

Sir, allusion has been made, in an early stage of this debate, to the history of the excitement which once pervaded a…

— Caleb Cushing

These our great natural rights we keep to ourselves; we will not have them tampered with; respecting them we give to you…

— Caleb Cushing

If there be any plausible reason for supposing that we have the right to legislate on the slave interests of the District,…

— Caleb Cushing

The winged words uttered in this House have gone forth to the world, on their mission of good or of evil.

— Caleb Cushing

The Normans came over, lance in hand, burning and trampling down every thing before them, and cutting off the Saxon dynasty and…

— Caleb Cushing

The proceedings of this House in 1790, in reference to petitions on the matter of the slave trade, and of slavery in…

— Caleb Cushing

Upon the Constitution, upon the pre-existing legal rights of the People, as understood in this country and in England, I have argued…

— Caleb Cushing

The right of petition is an old undoubted household right of the blood of England, which runs in our veins.

— Caleb Cushing

Here, again, as I conceive, gentlemen forget that this government is a republican one, resting exclusively in the intelligence and virtue of…

— Caleb Cushing

The right of petition, I have said, was not conferred on the People by the Constitution, but was a pre-existing right, reserved…

— Caleb Cushing

It is impossible, in my mind, to distinguish between the refusal to receive a petition, or its summary rejection by some general…

— Caleb Cushing

Entertaining these opinions of the course to be pursued, I beg of gentlemen to look at the question, as I have done,…

— Caleb Cushing

When we fled from the oppressions of kings and parliaments in Europe, to found this great Republic in America, we brought with…

— Caleb Cushing

Men of New England, I hold you to the doctrines of liberty which ye inherit from your Puritan forefathers.

— Caleb Cushing

I maintain that the House is bound by the Constitution to receive the petitions; after which, it will take such method of…

— Caleb Cushing

This Republic was called into being, organized, and is upheld, by a great political doctrine.

— Caleb Cushing

And if this House is to be scared, by whatever influences, from its duty, to receive and hear the petitions of the…

— Caleb Cushing

Sir, I am a republican; and I desire to see this House observe the principles of that democracy which is ever on…

— Caleb Cushing

You well know, sir, that when the Constitution was submitted to the People of the respective States for their adoption or rejection,…

— Caleb Cushing

Some of them, in accepting the proposed plan of government, coupled their acceptance with a recommendation of various additions to the Constitution,…

— Caleb Cushing

Men of Virginia, countrymen of Washington, of Patrick Henry, of Jefferson, and of Madison, will ye be true to your constitutional faith?

— Caleb Cushing