Excerpt from Mr. Whipple's Report, and Mr. Otis's Letter, 1839 And, whereas, in the judgment of this General Assembly, that part of the resolution, which declares that "every petition, memorial, resolution, proposition or paper, touching or relating, in any way or to any extent whatever, to slavery as aforesaid, or to the abolition thereof, shall, on the presentation thereof, without any further action thereon, be laid on the table, without being printed, debated, or referred," is unsound in principle, a dangerous invasion of the right of the people to petition Congress, and in violation of the true intent and meaning of the Constitution of the United States. Therefore, resolved, That the General Assembly do hereby, in the name of the people of this State, protest against said resolutions, and declare that in their opinion, they ought to be rescinded. Resolved, That his Excellency the Governor be requested to cause a copy of these resolutions, to be transmitted to the members of the United States House of Representatives from this State, to be by them laid before that body. All which is respectfully submitted by James F. Simmons, For the Committee. Report of the Minority of the same Committee. The undersigned, one of the Committee to whom the foregoing resolutions were referred, begs leave to report, that as he differs in opinion from the other members of the Committee, he has felt it to be his duty to himself and to his constituents to give to the subject all the attention which his other engagements would permit. By the resolutions submitted by Mr.Wells, from Hopkinton, the resolutions of the national House of Representatives of the 12th December 1838, are characterized "as a dangerous invasion of the right of the people to petition Congress, and in violation of the Constitution of the United States." The national House of Representatives is composed of many distinguished statesmen and jurists, who are no strangers to the language and spirit of the constitution. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.