Yes. Under some circumstances, Congress can prohibit advocacy that people break existing laws, but not peaceful advocacy that existing laws be changed. When the Supreme Court has upheld restrictions on speech–one example would be Dennis v. United States, involving Communist Party activity in the 1950’s–it has always done so on the ground that the speech directly advocates or incites lawbreaking rather than a change in law.
(Again, however, this is as much a part of free speech rather than the specific “right to petition”; in today’s world it’s hard to cite anything that would be covered by the latter but not the former.)
Yes, that’s one example of a petition, although I don’t think it’s the type that the authors of the First Amendment had in mind. (It would be a little silly to have a right of habeas corpus and then prosecute you for petitioning for it!) I think they were more concerned with mass petitions, as in “Will you sign my petition asking the Governor to support the repeal of the ad valorem tax?”
In today’s world, it’s hard to see why you’d need a special right to do this. If the governor doesn’t like your petition, he’ll just ignore it rather than throw you in jail. But in Stuart Dynasty England, the mere act of petitioning–irrespective of the contents of the petition–might be construed as interference with the king’s prerogatives, or denial of his dignity, or treasonous sedition. The inclusion of the right to petition in the British and American Bills of Rights made it clear that this would no longer be the case.
The same thing happens at the federal level just about every week Congress is in session. The TV cameras may show 10,000 people at the Capitol Mall on the march for – well, you name it. What they don’t show is the representatives of those marchers going into the Senate and House office buildings to meet with legislative staffs (or if they’re lucky, the actual Representatives and Senators) to talk about tougher penalties for drunken driving, or a constitutional amendment to outlaw flag-burning, expand abortion rights, or whatever.
Last time I was in Washington I accompanied our policy director into one of the office buildings to drop off a packet of stuff for our local Congressperson. There’s no pomp and circumstance in those buildings – it’s all people who are there to do serious business. I must have seen 100 people with various pro-this or anti-that buttons in the few minutes I was there.
Exactly right. The definitive historical account of this comes from a fascinating book called Arguing Over Slavery, which I highly recommend. In fact, the first week (month?) of each Congressional session back then was given over to congressmen introducing, and reading, various petitions that they had received. Most of those petitions, by the way, were sent by women and free blacks. The right to petition meant a heck of a lot more when fewer people could vote; if you were disenfranchised, it was one of the only ways your voice could (at least nominally) be heard at the federal level.
I don’t think the First Amendment right to petition has anything to do with habeas corpus since that right is already included in the original part of the Consitution.
To “petition” is not necessarily “to sign or circulate a written petition.” It is a British usage, and generally means simply “to ask for.” The peculiar usage is due to what Parliament did during the Middle Ages. The King had the right to make whatever laws he liked, but only Parliament could levy taxes (certain exceptions disregarded). So the standard proceeding for Parliament is that they would refuse to pass “supply” (the law(s) authorizing taxes) until the King consented to sign into law the “bills of petition” which they passed. (That is why a not-yet-passed law is referred to as a “bill.”)
