Caleb Cushing Quotes
It is impossible, in my mind, to distinguish between the refusal to receive a petition, or its summary rejection by some general order, and the denial of the right of petition.
Cushing, Caleb. Speech of Mr. Cushing, of Massachusetts, on the Right of Petition, as Connected with Petitions for the Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the District of Columbia: In the House of Representatives, January 25, 1836. Gales and Seaton, 1836, p. 11.
The Nazis were banned from demonstrating in the streets of Skokie, Illinois on the grounds that they would incite violence. However, Goldberger of the ACLU took their case and won their right to spew their hatred before the Supreme Court.
Caleb Cushing was an American Democratic politician and diplomat who served as a Congressman from Massachusetts and Attorney General under President Franklin Pierce. He was an eager proponent of territorial and commercial expansion, especially regarding the acquisition of Texas, Oregon and Cuba. He believed that enlarging the American sphere would fulfill "the great destiny reserved for this exemplar American Republic." Cushing secured the first American treaty with China, the Treaty of Wangxia of 1844; it gave American merchants trading rights in five Chinese ports. After the Civil War, Cushing negotiated a treaty with Colombia to give the United States a right-of-way for a trans-oceanic Canal. He helped obtain a favorable settlement of the Alabama Claims, and as the ambassador to Spain in 1870s defused the troublesome Virginius Affair.
