Petition, Right Of

Petition, Right Of The First Amendment guarantees the right “to petition the government for redress of grievances.” It has its roots, as do many of our constitutional safeguards, in the constitutional development of England, with the idea of “redress” suggested by Edgar the Peaceful as early as between 959 and 963 CE. It had a significant role in the burgeoning rise of parliamentary power with the Magna Carta of 1215 (chapter 61). The House of Commons commenced a formal practice of petitioning the king on behalf of individual citizens as well as corporations during the latter part of the thirteenth century, thus introducing formal attempts to bargain with him.

Some three centuries later, after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Parliament enacted the Declaration of Rights of 1689, affirmed as the Bill of Rights in the same year, which endeavored to enshrine the right of petition, that is, access to an authority empowered to redress a grievance, or sanction a demand, as a basic constitutional entitlement. It became logically one of the corner‐stones of America's Declaration of Independence of 1776 and, ultimately, of the Bill of Rights in 1791. Thomas Jefferson's roster of grievances contained in the former catalogued the flouting of “petitions for redress” as one of the cardinal grievances against King George III. It was only natural that the Bill of Rights would also embrace the right of petition. Most state constitutions included a similar guarantee.

The right to petition has received far less judicial attention than have the other four rights spelled out in the First Amendment, and is often taken for granted. It has frequently been subsumed under the collateral rights of assembly and association in decisions such as United States v. Cruikshank (1876), Twining v. New Jersey (1908), DeJonge v. Oregon (1937), Hague v. Congress of Industrial Organizations (1939), and Brown v. Glines (1980). But it is nonetheless secure and employed with predictable alacrity by a petition‐prone and litigious American citizenry.

The right of petitions takes two forms: one is the direct petitioning of legislators—and sometimes members of the executive branch, including administrative bodies—for the redress of whatever genuine or imaginary grievances an individual constituent (or, for that matter, a nonconstituent) or a group may have or fancy. It is here that members of legislative bodies, most prominently members of Congress, play a favorite role, that of errand running for those whom they represent, those who helped to select them, and also those who did not. Closely related to the other hallowed rights under the First Amendment, the American public demonstrably views the right of petition as a basic prerogative.

The second form is the popular practice of circulating petitions to be signed by individuals (and/or groups and business and professional organizations) so as to create visible pressure on individual players in the governmental process. Such petitions have become a major tool in that process and are frequently directly responsible for action by governmental bodies. This generation of massive pressuring runs the gamut from handwritten formats to sophisticated, mass‐produced modes of appeal, often utilizing the media, especially in the form of paid newspaper advertisements, in which long lists of supplicants contribute to the costs involved and permit their names to be used.

Only once in the two centuries of the existence of the Constitution of the United States has there been a formal attempt to curb the right to petition for the redress of grievances. It occurred in 1836, when the House of Representatives—but not the Senate—enacted what became quickly known as the “gag rule” against the receipt of petitions from abolitionists who opposed the institution of slavery. The “gag rule” came under immediate fire, with opposition spearheaded by antislavery Whigs under the leadership of Congressman (and former President) John Quincy Adams; it was repealed eight years later.

Bibliography

Don L. Smith , The Right to Petition for Redress of Grievances: Constitutional Development and Interpretations (1971).

Henry J. Abraham