RIGHT OF PETITION.

463

LECTURE XXI.

Of petitions during the early times of representative government.-Regulations on the subject.-Transformation of the right of petition possessed by the Houses of Parliament into the right of proposition and initiative.-Petitions cease to be addressed to the king, and are presented to Parliament -Origin of the right of inquiry.-Necessity for representative government to be complete.-Artifices and abuses engendered by the right of petition.

THE circumstances which occur at the origin of an institution are well calculated to make us acquainted with its nature. At such periods, events are simple, and produce themselves spontaneously. No effort has yet been made either to evade them or to change their nature, and the state of society is not sufficiently complicated to render it impossible to attain the object aimed at by any but subtle and indirect means.

To say truth, in what does the right of petition consist? It is the right to demand the reparation of an injury, or to give expression to a desire. Such a demand must naturally be addressed to the power which is capable of satisfying the desire or repairing the injury,—which has authority, and power enough to grant the prayer of the petition.

Accordingly, in the fourteenth contury, all petitions, whether they emanated from the two Houses of Parliament, or from individuals unconnected with those Houses, whether they had reference to general or private interests, were addressed to the king. No one had any idea of petitioning the Houses themselves; the king governed; in him resided both the right and the power to redress public or private grievances, and to satisfy the requirements of the nation. To him the barons, commons, corporations, and citizens applied whenever they had need.

The king governed in his council: and of all his councils, the Parliament was the most eminent and the most extensive. In certain cases, the advice and acquiescence of the

464

PRESENTATION OF PETITIONS.

Parliament, as a whole or in part, were necessary to the exercise of the royal authority. The meeting of Parliament was, therefore, the natural opportunity for the presentation of all petitions. It was, as it were, the moment at which the nation and the government met face to face, either to transact in common those affairs which required their concurrence, or to make those reciprocal demands of which they mutually stood in need. Private citizens naturally availed themselves of this opportunity for presenting their own petitions, either because the co-operation of the great powers of the State was necessary to grant their prayers, or because they referred to demands upon which the king was competent to decide alone, but to which his attention would then be more effectually directed, as they might receive support from the patronage of the barons or deputies met in council with the king.

In all cases, it was to the king in his council, that is to say, to the government itself, that petitions were addressed; and far from the Houses of Parliament, after having received and examined them, referring them to the government for decision, it was the king who, by officers specially appointed for the purpose, received and examined them, and afterwards called the attention of both Houses to those with whose prayers he could not comply without their sanction. All complaints and demands were thus forwarded directly to the power entrusted with the duty of coming to a definitive decision regarding them; and the Houses of Parliament interfered subsequently only in certain cases, and then as a necessary council.

Such was the primitive and natural fact. The progress of the representative system, however, completely changed its course and character.

We have seen that, in the fourteenth century, petitions were of two kinds; first, those drawn up or presented to the king, by one or both Houses, and relating to grievances of a more or less general character; secondly, those addressed to the king by corporations or citizens, and relating to collective or private interests. We have now nothing further to do with the first class of these petitions. As far as the Houses of Parliament are concerned, they have become transformed into a right of initiative, more or less efficacious

ASSERTION OF THE RIGHT OF PETITION.

465

and more or less direct. This right, its importance and its forms, give rise to questions of an entirely distinct character. At the present day, the complaints or demands addressed by private citizens to the legislative authorities, are alone called by the name of petitions.

There is now no further question about the right of addressing such demands to the executive power itself,-to the government properly so called. No one thinks of contesting the right of citizens to seek in this manner the redress of their grievances, or the satisfaction of their desires. Nor that this right, in itself so simple and incontestable, has not sometimes assumed great political importance, and thereby occasioned animated discussions. In 1680, Charles II., having ceased for several years to convoke a Parliament, a great number of petitions were addressed to him demanding its convocation. The king, by proclamation, declared them seditious, and refused to receive them; but the Parliament having met at last, the House of Commons enacted, on the 27th of October, 1680; "1. That it is, and ever hath been, the undoubted right of the subjects of England to petition the king for the calling and sitting of Parliaments, and redressing of grievances. 2. That to traduce such petitioning as a violation of duty, and to represent it to his Majesty as tumultuous or seditious, is to betray the liberty of the subject, and contribute to the design of subverting the ancient legal constitution of this kingdom, and introducing arbitrary power. 3. That a committee be appointed to enquire after all such persons, that have offended against the right of the subject."*

A state of crisis could alone lead to such an attempt to destroy the most natural of the right of citizens--the right of addressing the government itself in order to make known to it their desires-and the Charter, reasonably, neither sanctioned nor limited it. The right to which it gave sanction, and which alone now bears the name of the right of petition, is the right of applying to the two Houses of Parlia ment to urge their interference, either in some matter of general legislation, or for the redress of private grievances. To this right the question which we have now under consideration is restricted. We must enquire how it became * Parliamentary History, vol. iv. p. 1174.

466

PETITIONS TO PARLIAMENT.

introduced into the representative system of government, and in what respects the various forms which it has successively assumed correspond to the various stages of the development of that system.

In fact, this right did not exist in the fourteenth century; that is to say, nobody thought either of exercising or of demanding it. The Houses of Parliament, and particularly the House of Commons, were themselves the great public petitioner. They had quite enough to do to present and obtain the reception of their own demands, without incurring the labour of interfering on behalf of private interests, which at that time were treated generally with much less consideration. They were, moreover, too slightly connected with the government thus to meddle with the details of its action. They were neither the seat nor the centre of power. Their assembly lasted only for a short period. The king's answers to their own demands were ordinarily given only during the next session. In such a state of things, it was natural that all private petitions should go directly to the king in council, for from that source alone could redress be expected.

When the Houses had acquired greater importance, sat for a longer period, and interfered in all great public affairswhen, in full and secure possession of their fundamental rights, they began to apply them to practice instead of limiting their efforts to defend their existence-when, in a word, they had acquired, in public opinion and in reality, the consistency of public powers associated in the government of the State, it became natural that petitions should be presented to them against the abuses or errors of that government which they were appointed to control. The right of petition to the Houses of Parliament was then regarded as a natural consequence of the right of petition to the king. The Parliament was always considered and called the great council of the king. This council, it is true, was habitually in opposition and conflict with the government of the king, which still remained exterior to it, and endea voured to free itself from its control: but ancient traditions retained their sway; complaint was made to one part of the government against the injuries committed by the other part. The new mode of petitioning did not, therefore, appear extraordinary, and no attempt was made either to

RIGHT OF INITIATIVE.

467

authorize or prohibit it. It was brought into use without opposition.*

But when this practice was introduced, the Houses of Parliament themselves had undergone great change of form, and received considerable development, as regarded their internal constitution, their proceedings, and their privileges. Instead of those petitions which, at the outset, they had been accustomed to present to the king, the right of initiative had been substituted, and this right belonged to every member of either of the two Houses of Parliament who might exercise it by bringing forward, with such formalities and delays as were required by usage, any motion with which he thought it fitting to occupy the assembly. With the right

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* Mr. Hallam is of opinion that the interference of the Commons in regard to petitions relating to matters of private interest originated solely in this desire to repress the encroachments of the Privy Council. "From the first years of Henry V.," he says, though not, I think, earlier, the Commons began to concern themselves with the petitions of individuals to the Lords or Council. Many of the requests preferred to them were such as could not be granted without transcending the boundaries of law. A just inquietude as to the encroachments of the king's council had long been manifested by the Commons: and finding remonstrances ineffectual, they took measures for preventing such usurpations of legislative power, by introducing their own consent to private petitions. These were now presented by the hands of the Commons, and in very many instances passed in the form of statutes with the express assent of all parts of the legislature. Such was the origin of private bills, which occupy the greater part of the rolls in Henry V. and VI.'s Parliament." (Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 224.)

Beginning from the reign of Edward III. (1322), or, as Mr. Hallam thinks, from that of Edward II. (1310), we find both Houses, at the opening of the session, each appoint a committee for the purpose, no only of receiving, but of examining petitions, in order to enquire into the truth of the facts stated, before the petitions became the subject of deliberation in Parliament. (Parliamentary History, vol. i. p. 230.) It is doubtful whether the committees received directly the petitions addressed to the king in council, or whether those which fell under the cognizance of the Parliament were referred to them by the officers of the king. In 1410, we meet with an instance of a private petition, addressed to the Commons, and transmitted by them to the king, with their recommendation. (Report of the Lords Commissioners, p. 362.) For the mode of the presentation of petitions, both to the Privy Council, and to the House of Lords, see Hailam's dissertation on the Privy Council, in the second volume of his History of the Middle Ages.