Justice & Law Quote by Caleb Cushing

Cushing’s sentence is a lawyer’s lever disguised as a civics lesson: he stacks authorities until the “House” has no dignified escape route. Start with “the Constitution,” the highest American script. Then pivot to “pre-existing legal rights,” a phrase that quietly denies those rights are a gift from government. They’re older than any statute, and therefore harder to bargain away. Finally, he adds the clincher: “as understood in this country and in England.” That transatlantic appeal isn’t nostalgia; it’s strategy. By invoking English legal tradition, Cushing smuggles in the prestige of inherited common-law norms while also reminding American legislators that their own legitimacy is rooted in a rebellion that nevertheless kept much of England’s legal grammar.

The key verb is “bound.” He’s not asking whether reviving the petition is wise. He’s arguing it’s compulsory. In a legislature that loves discretion, “bound” turns choice into duty. The subtext is a warning: if the House refuses, it won’t merely disappoint petitioners; it will break faith with the constitutional order and the people’s antecedent rights.

“Revive the Petition” suggests something suppressed or allowed to lapse, implying institutional neglect or political cowardice. Cushing, a diplomat and consummate insider, speaks as someone fluent in legitimacy-making: he frames the petition not as agitation but as continuity. The context is a 19th-century America where petitions were a frontline tool for abolitionists, reformers, and dissenters, and where procedural maneuvers could bury uncomfortable claims. Cushing’s move is to treat procedure as a moral instrument: if the rules are real, the House must act.