Quotes about petitions (16 Quotes)




    If there be any plausible reason for supposing that we have the right to legislate on the slave interests of the District, you cannot put down the investigation of the subject out of doors, by refusing to receive petitions.




    The majority of our petitions were already filed before today, so it was really quite quiet. We had some company, but basically they were incumbents who had no opposition, holding their breath for the deadline. That was all the company we had.



    The quest for this unwearied peace is constant and universal. Probe deeply into the teaching of Buddha, Maimonides, or a Kempis, and you will discover that they base their diverse doctrines on the foundation of a large spiritual serenity. Analyze the prayers of troubled, overborne mankind of all creeds, in every ageand their petitions come down to the irreducible common denominators of daily bread and inward peace. Grown men do not pray for vain trifles. When they lift up their hearts and voices in the valley of tears they ask for strength and courage and understanding.

    The proceedings of this House in 1790, in reference to petitions on the matter of the slave trade, and of slavery in the States, have been cited. It has been said that those petitions were not received.

    Karl Barth, the 20th-century theologian who pounded home the theme of God's sovereignty, saw no contradiction at all in a God who chooses to let prayers affect him. He is not deaf, he listens more than that, he acts. He does not act in the same way whether we pray or not. Prayer exerts an influence upon God's action, even upon his existence. That is what the word 'answer' means. ... The fact that God yields to man's petitions, changing his intentions in response to man's prayer, is not a sign of weakness. He himself, in the glory of his majesty and power, has so willed it.


    It's not so bad for politicians and Pulitzer Prize poets and certain intellectuals in this country to sign petitions and speak out against the war in Vietnam, but when Cassius Clay did it he paid a heavy price for Freedom of Speech.

    The establishment of the petitions coordination bureau, under the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, shows the mainland attaches great importance to the protection of the rights and interests of Taiwan businessmen,

    And if this House is to be scared, by whatever influences, from its duty, to receive and hear the petitions of the People, then I shall send my voice beyond the walls of this Capitol for redress.

    I maintain that the House is bound by the Constitution to receive the petitions; after which, it will take such method of deciding upon them as reason and principle shall dictate.



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