took its rise from the modest provision made for
it in chapter 61 of Magna Carta (1215).[243] To this meagre beginning
Parliament itself and its procedures in the enactment of legislation,
the equity jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor, and proceedings against
the Crown by "petition of right" are all in some measure traceable.
Thus, while the King summoned Parliament for the purpose of supply, the
latter--but especially the House of Commons--petitioned the King for a
redress of grievances as its price for meeting the financial needs of
the Monarch; and as it increased in importance it came to claim the
right to dictate the form of the King's reply, until in 1414 Commons
boldly declared themselves to be "as well assenters as petitioners." Two
hundred and fifty years later, in 1669, Commons further resolved that
every commoner in England possessed "the inherent right to prepare and
present petitions" to it "in case of grievance," and of Commons "to
receive the same" and to judge whether they were "fit" to be received.
Finally Chapter 5 of the Bill of Rights of 1689 asserted the right of
the subjects to petition the King and "all commitments and prosecutions
for such petitioning to be illegal."[244]

Historically, therefore, the right of petition is the primary right, the
right peaceably to assemble a subordinate and instrumental right, as if
Amendment I read; "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" _in
order to_ "petition the government."[245] Today, however, the right of
peaceable assembly is, in the language of the Court, "cognate to those
of free speech and free press and is equally fundamental * * * [It] is
one that cannot be denied without violating those fundamental principles
of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all civil and political
institutions,--principles which the Fourteenth Amendment embodies in the
general terms of its due process clause. * * * The holding of meetings
for peaceable political action cannot be proscribed. Those who assist in
the conduct of such meetings cannot be branded as criminals on that
score. The question * * * is not as to the auspices under which the
meeting is held but as to its purposes; not as to the relation of the
speakers, but whether their utterances transcend the bounds of the
freedom of speech which the Constitution protects."[246] Furthermore,
the right of petition has expanded. It is no longer confined to demands
for "a redress of grievances," in any accu