he right to petition is protected in the First Amendment to the Constitution. In the United States, it is the right of the people to express dissent, to ask for help, or to propose a policy for the common good without risk to either life or liberty. It is a right that Americans have vigorously exercised for more than two centuries.

"American Voices: 200 Years of Speaking Out" is a major exhibition that presents a sampling of the countless petitions, letters, and appeals that are held by the National Archives. On the two hundredth anniversary of the federal government, this exhibition focuses on the relationship between the American people and the federal government. The items displayed are pieces of a lively dialogue that has continued for more than two hundred years.

The 103 items that make up "American Voices" offer a kaleidoscopic view of the American experience. The documents range in dates from 1775 to 1980 and address issues as universal as atomic weaponry and as intimate as a failing marriage. They include bold assertions of rights, desperate pleas for help, organized efforts to effect change, and tentative suggestions for federal action. While some of the messages speak to issues specific to one person or situation, others tackle subjects that have emerged and reemerged as themes in our national history. But beneath this great diversity of time, tone, and content is a common faith in the right of the people to speak out and be heard.

Many major figures are represented in "American Voices": Benjamin Franklin in an antislavery petition; Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in a petition for female suffrage; Mary Todd Lincoln in an appeal for a widow's

pension; Sitting Bull in a letter to President Cleveland asking for improved conditions for his people at the Standing Rock Agency; W. E. B. DuBois in a letter applying for a job at the Department of Labor; Stephen Wise in a letter to President Roosevelt requesting a meeting to discuss the death camps in Nazi-occupied Europe; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a telegram to President Kennedy asking for federal support and intervention in the civil rights movement; and John Steinbeck in a letter to President Johnson expressing feelings of friendship and support for his policy in the Vietnam War.

Most of the documents in the exhibition, however, are from private citizens whose names have escaped the history books. In their messages, one can read about the hopes and struggles of a few little-known but outspoken Americans. Although the words "beg," "implore," and "pray" appear often in the documents, they belie the authors' underlying faith in the rightness of their cause and in the government's accountability to the people.

Some highlights of the exhibition include:

The 1789 petition to Congress from Mary Katherine Goddard, who had held the job of postmaster of Baltimore from 1775 to 1789. Upon the inauguration of the federal government, the Postmaster General removed her from her office to install a new appointee. With fourteen years of service behind her and a clear sense of fair play, she appealed to Congress to intervene in her behalf. (Ultimately, the Postmaster General's decision was upheld.)

The 1811 petition to Congress from seaman David Beck, a resident of the District of Columbia, asking for a divorce; his appeal included

charges of his wife's infidelity and desertion. (Congress denied Beck's request, declaring itself, or any human assembly, "incompetent to dissolve the sacred bonds of marriage.")

The 1899 letter to President McKinley from Henry Johnson, who had witnessed a brutal lynching in Argenta, Arkansas. At great personal risk, he named those people who had participated in the lynching and asked the President for help. (There was no evidence of a response to Johnson found in the file.)

One of the petitions in "American Voices" is written on the stationery of a Florida prison. In June 1961, a fifty-one-year-old drifter was arrested in Bay County, Florida, for breaking and entering a pool hall. Unable to afford a lawyer, he asked for a court-appointed attorney when his case came to trial. Denied this request, Clarence Earl Gideon unsuccessfully represented himself. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. Convinced he did not get a fair trial, Gideon petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to review his case. With his petitions, handwritten in pencil on prison stationery [fig. 0], Gideon set in motion a process that resulted in a landmark Supreme Court decision that would guarantee the services of a lawyer to anyone charged with a crime and unable to afford legal counsel.

The most recent items in the exhibition relate to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. In 1980, thirty-eight years after the internment was ordered, the government established a commission to study the "facts and circumstances" of the episode and to propose possible remedies. Two messages to the commission are included in "American Voices." In a 1980 letter, a former soldier assigned to stand guard at the Santa Anita Assembly Center described the bewilderment and eventual shame and fear he experienced when he discovered that he was participating in the roundup of JapaneseAmericans. The other message on display is an illustrated book by a Japanese-American woman born in one of the detention camps. In it she explained how her participation in the commission hearings helped her to heal and recover from her experience in the camps. (The commission found that the internment of JapaneseAmericans was not a result of valid national se

curity considerations but was the result of wartime hysteria, racial prejudice, and failure of political leadership. In August 1988, President Reagan signed a bill providing for the payment of $20,000 to each surviving internee as a form of reparation.)

Several of the petitions in "American Voices" reflect the government's role in scientific, technological, and artistic pursuits. Since 1790, the patent system has legally protected inventors from piracy of their work. To obtain a patent, inventors must petition the government, providing a general description, illustration, and detailed specifications of their invention. Impartial and democratic, the patent system has offered equal protection to the tinkerer and the genius alike.

On display is Thomas Edison's famous 1879 petition for a patent on an "Improvement in Electric Lamps," as well as a petition for a patent on an "Improvement in Bows for the Neck," complete with the requisite drawing and detailed instructions on how to tie the bow [fig. 0]. (Inventors James Sangster and Oran W. Seely were granted a patent on May 8, 1866.)

Traditionally, the federal government has tried to encourage scientific progress; but one of the documents in "American Voices" suggests the more recent need to temper scientific progress with restraint. On July 17, 1945, many of the scientists who had worked feverishly and in secret to develop the atomic bomb during World War II signed a petition to President Truman, urging him to consider the moral implications of the bomb's use.

Although many of the petitions express deference to government officials, they do not denote passivity or victimization. A deeper reading of these messages reveals assertion, personal courage, and confidence in a government that can admit and correct its mistakes. The federal government, as outlined in the Constitution, was inaugurated in 1789. Two hundred years later, "American Voices: 200 Years of Speaking Out" celebrates an outspoken populace that does not hesitate to raise its voice, and a government that is inclined to listen.

Stacey Bredhoff is on the exhibits staff of the National Archives and Records Administration and is the curator of "American Voices: 200 Years of Speaking Out."