Now, if there be those who are not satisfied under the present government of America, let them reflect. Let them compare their rights to-day with the rights of the people subjected to the repeated "injuries and usurpations" so eloquently recited by those who founded this government, who adopted our Constitution which will forever bar any power from exercising "a design to reduce them (the people) to absolute despotism".
Read through this catalog of wrongs endured by the people of the colonies. Then read through the guaranties of the Constitution. You will find that in large part the guaranties of the Constitution were inspired by the wrongs recited by the people when they proclaimed their independence.(94)
I said that this recital is dramatic. It is also pathetic. Listen: "_In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury._" Is it any wonder that the Constitution of the United States should provide that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"?
Is it any wonder that we find in the Constitution guaranties of freedom of worship, freedom of speech and of the press, the right of the people to bear arms, the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, and papers, the right to a speedy jury trial when accused of crime, and the right to a trial in the district where the offense was committed instead of being sent beyond the seas? When we read of the wrongs endured by the people under the government by a king we can readily understand why the people put into their Constitution a guaranty that a person no matter how poor shall have an attorney to defend him, shall have his witnesses brought into court at government expense, that excessive bail shall not be required, and cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted, that slavery is forever abolished on American soil, that the property of every person, rich or poor is sacred, and that even the government of the United States cannot take it for public use without just compensation, that every person shall have equal protection of the law, and if wrongfully imprisoned he can secure his release by writ of habeas corpus. You can readily see that all these guaranties of the Constitution and many others which we have been studying were intended to give protection to the people from wrongs which the people had suffered throughout the world under the different forms of government existing before America was born.