with the custom in England which does not permit bills of this character to originate with the House of Lords.1 To these * bills, however, the other house may propose alterations, [*132] and they require the assent of that house to their passage, the same as other bills. The time for the meeting of the legislature will be such time as is fixed by the constitution or by statute; but it may be called together by the executive in special session as the constitution may prescribe, and the two houses may also adjourn any general session to a time fixed by them for the holding of a special session, if an agreement to that effect can be arrived at; and if not, power is conferred by a majority of the constitutions upon the executive to prorogue and adjourn them. And if the executive in any case undertake to exercise this power to prorogue and adjourn, on the assumption that a disagreement exists between the two houses which warrants his interference, and his action is acquiesced in by those bodies, who thereupon cease to hold their regular sessions, the legislature must be held in law to have adjourned, and no inquiry can be entered upon as to the rightfulness of the governor's assumption that such a disagreement existed.2 1 There are provisions in the Constitutions of Massachusetts, Delaware, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, Indiana, Oregon, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Virginia, and Maine, requiring revenue bills to originate in the more popular branch of the legislature, but allowing the Senate the power of amendment usual in other cases. During the second session of the forty-first Congress, the House of Representatives by their vote denied the right of the Senate under the Constitution to originate a bill repealing a law imposing taxes; but the Senate did not assent to this conclusion. In England the Lords are not allowed to amend money bills, and by resolutions of 5th and 6th July, 1860, the Commons deny their right even to reject them. 2 This question became important and was passed upon in People v. Hatch, 33 Ill. 9. The Senate had passed a resolution for an adjournment of the session sine die on a day named, which was amended by the House by fixing a different day. The Senate refused to concur, and the House then passed a resolution expressing a desire to recede from its action in amending the resolution, and requesting a return of the resolution by the Senate. While matters stood thus, the governor, assuming that such a disagreement existed as empowered him to interfere, sent in his proclamation, declaring the legislature adjourned to a day named, and which was at the very end of the official term of the members. The message created excitement; it does not seem to have been at once acquiesced in, and a protest against the governor's authority was entered upon the journal; but for eleven days in one house and twelve in the other no entries were made [* 133] *There are certain matters which each house determines for itself, and in respect to which its decision is conclusive. It chooses its own officers, except where, by constitution or statute, it is otherwise provided; it determines its own rules of proceeding, it decides upon the election and qualification of its own members. These powers it is obviously proper should rest with the body immediately interested, as essential to enable it to enter upon and proceed with its legislative functions, without liability to interruption and confusion. In determining questions concerning contested seats, the house will exercise judicial power, but generally in accordance with a course of practice which has sprung from precedents in similar cases, and no other authority is at liberty to interfere. Each house has also the power to punish members for disorderly behavior, and other contempts of its authority, as well as to expel a member for any cause which seems to the body to render it unfit that he continue to occupy one of its seats. This power is generally enumerated in the constitution among those which the two houses may exercise, but it need not be specified in that instrument, since it would exist whether expressly conferred or not. It is "a necessary and incidental power, to enable the house to perform its high functions, and is necessary to the safety of upon their journals, and it was unquestionable that practically they had acquiesced in the action of the governor, and adjourned. At the expiration of the twelve days, a portion of the members came together again, and it was claimed by them that the message of the governor was without authority, and the two houses must be considered as having been, in point of law, in session during the intervening period, and that consequently any bills which had before been passed by them and sent to the governor for his approval, and which he had not returned within ten days, Sundays excepted, had become laws under the constitution. The Supreme Court held that, as the two houses had practically acquiesced in the action of the governor, the session had come to an end, and that the members had no power to reconvene on their own motion, as had been attempted. The case is a very full and valuable one on several points pertaining to legislative proceedings and authority. 1 In People v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 481, it was held that the correctness of a decision by one of the houses, that certain persons had been chosen members, could not be inquired into by the courts. In that case a law was assailed as void, on the ground that a portion of the members who voted for it, and without whose votes it would not have had the requisite majority, had been given their seats in the House in defiance of law, and to the exclusion of others who had a majority of legal votes. See the same principle in State v. Jarrett, 17 Md. 309. See also Lamb v. Lynd, 44 Penn. St. 336. the State. It is a power of protection. A member may be physically, mentally, or morally wholly unfit; he may be affected with a contagious disease, or insane, or noisy, violent, and disorderly, or in the habit of using profane, obscene, and abusive language." And, independently of parliamentary customs and usages, our legislative houses have the power to protect themselves by the punishment and expulsion of a member "; and the courts cannot inquire into the justice of the decision, or even so much as examine the proceedings to see whether opportunity for defence was furnished or not.1 * Each house may also punish contempts of its authority. [*134] by other persons, without express authority from the constitution therefor; 2 but where imprisonment is imposed as a punishment, it must terminate with the final adjournment of the house, and if the prisoner be not then discharged by its order, he may be released on habeas corpus.3 By common parliamentary law, the members of the legislature are privileged from arrest on civil process during the session of that body, and for a reasonable time before and after to enable them to go to and return from the same. By the constitutions of some of the States this privilege has been enlarged, so as to exempt the persons of legislators from any service of civil process, and in others their estates are exempt from attachment for some prescribed period.5 For any arrest contrary to the parliamentary 1 Hiss v. Bartlett, 3 Gray, 468. And see Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204. 2 Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204; Burdett v. Abbott, 14 East, 1; Stockdale v. Hansard, 9 Ad. & El. 231; Burnham v. Morissey, 14 Gray, 226; State v. Matthews, 37 N. H. 450. Jefferson's Manual, § 18; Prichard's Case, 1 Lev. 165. "Senators and representatives shall, in all cases except treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest. They shall not be subject to any civil process during the session of the legislature, or for fifteen days next before the commencement and after the termination of each session." Const. of Mich. art. 4, § 7. The same exemption from civil process is found in the Constitutions of Kansas, Nebraska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Mis ouri, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Oregon. Exemption from arrest is not violated by the service of citations or declarations in civil cases. Gentry v. Griffith, 27 Texas, 461; Case v. Rorabacker, 15 Mich. 537. The Constitution of Rhode Island provides that "the person of every member of the General Assembly shall be exempt from arrest, and his estate from attachment, in any civil action, during the session of the General Assembly, and two days before the commencement and two days after the law or to these provisions, the house of which the person arrested is a member may give summary relief by ordering his discharge, and if the order is not complied with, by punishing the persons concerned in the arrest as for a contempt of its authority. The remedy of the member, however, is not confined to this mode of relief. His privilege is not the privilege of the house merely, but of the people, and is conferred to enable him to discharge the trust confided to him by his constituents; and if the house neglect to interfere the court from which the process issued should set it aside on the facts being represented, and any court or officer having authority to issue writs of habeas corpus may also [* 135] * inquire into the case, and release the party from the unlawful imprisonment.2 Each house must also be allowed to proceed in its own way in the collection of such information as may seem important to a proper discharge of its functions, and whenever it is deemed desirable that witnesses should be examined, the power and authority to do so is very properly referred to a committee, with any such powers short of final legislative or judicial action as may seem necessary or expedient in the particular case. Such a committee has no authority to sit during a recess of the house which has appointed it, without its permission to that effect; but the house is at liberty to confer such authority if it see fit.3 A refusal to appear or to testify before such committee, or to produce books or papers, would be a contempt of the house; but the committee cannot punish for contempts; it can only report the conduct of the offending party to the house for its action. The power of the committee will terminate with the final dissolution of the house appointing it. Each house keeps a journal of its proceedings, which is a public termination thereof, and all process served contrary hereto shall be void." Art. 4, § 5. 1 Coffin v. Coffin, 4 Mass. 27. 2 On this subject, Cushing on Law and Practice of Parliamentary Assemblies, §§ 546-597, will be consulted with profit. 3 Branham v. Lange, 16 Ind. 497; Marshall v. Harwood, 7 Md. 466. See also parliamentary cases, 5 Grey, 374; 9 Grey, 350; 1 Chandler, 50. • Burnham v. Morrissey, 14 Gray, 226. But the privilege of a witness to be exempt from a compulsory disclosure of his own criminal conduct is the same when examined by a legislative body or committee as when sworn in court. Emery's Case, 107 Mass. 172. record, and of which the courts are at liberty to take judicial notice. If it should appear from these journals that any act did not receive the requisite majority, or that in respect to it the legislature did not follow any requirement of the constitution, or that in any other respect the act was not constitutionally adopted, the courts may act upon this evidence, and adjudge the statute void. But whenever it is acting in the apparent performance of legal functions, every reasonable presumption is to be made in favor of the action of a legislative body; it will not be presumed in any case, from the mere silence of the journals, that either house has exceeded its authority, or disregarded a constitutional requirement in the passage of legislative [* 136] acts, unless where the constitution has expressly required the journals to show the action taken, as, for instance, where it requires the yeas and nays to be entered.3 The law also seeks to cast its protection around legislative sessions, and to shield them against corrupt and improper influences, by making void all contracts which have for their object to influence legislation in any other manner than by such open and public presentation of facts and arguments and appeals to reason as are recognized as proper and legitimate with all public bodies. While counsel may be properly employed to present the reasons in favor of any public measure to the body authorized to pass upon it, or to any of its committees empowered to collect facts Spangler v. Jacoby, 14 Ill. 297; Miller v. State, 3 Ohio, N. s. 475; People v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 481; Southwark Bank v. Commonwealth, 2 Penn. St. 446; McCulloch v. State, 11 Ind. 430; State v. Moffit, 5 Ohio, 358; Turley v. Logan Co. 17 Ill. 151; People v. Supervisors of Chenango, 8 N. Y. 317; Jones v. Hutchinson, 43 Ill. 721; Fordyce v. Goodman, 20 Ohio, N. s. 1. 2 See cases cited in preceding note. Also Prescott v. Trustees of Ill. & Mich. Canal, 19 Ill. 324. The case of Sherman v. Story, 30 Cal. 253, appears to be contra. And see Louisiana State Lottery Co. v. Richoux, 23 La. An. 458; s. c. 8 Am. Rep. 600. A remarkable case recently came under judgment in South Carolina. An act to simplify practice passed the two houses of the legislature. By the previous law the courts for the county of Barnwell were held at Blackville, and the new act contained a provision continuing them at that place. As presented to and signed by the governor, however, it substituted Barnwell for Blackville. Held that the provision thus changed was void, — the journals showing the change, and that the courts must still be held at Blackville. State v. Platt, 2 S. C. (N. s.) 150. 3 Miller v. State, 3 Ohio, N. s. 475; McCulloch v. State, 11 Ind. 424; Supervisors v. People, 25 Ill. 181. |