Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/220

 212 the office little more, than the barren honour of a place, without influence and without action.

§ 737. A question, involving the authority of the vice president, as presiding officer in the senate, has been much discussed in consequence of a decision recently made by that officer. Hitherto the power of preserving order during the deliberations of the senate in all cases, where the rules of the senate did not specially prescribe another mode, had been silently supposed to belong to the vice president, as an incident of office. It had never been doubted, much less denied, from the first organization of the senate; and its existence had been assumed, as an inherent quality, constitutionally delegated, subject only to such rules, as the senate should from time to time prescribe. In the winter session of 1826, the vice president decided in effect, that, as president of the senate, he had no power of preserving order, or of calling any member to order, for words spoken in the course of debate, upon his own authority, but only so far, as it was given, and regulated by the rules of the senate. This was a virtual surrender of the presiding power (if not universally, at least in that case) into the hands of the senate; and disarmed the officer even of the power of self-protection from insult or abuse, unless the senate should choose to make provision for it. If, therefore, the senate should decline to confer the power of preserving order, the vice president might become a mere pageant and cipher in that body. If, indeed, the vice president had not this power virtute officii, there was nothing to prevent the senate from confiding it to any other officer chosen by itself. Nay, if the power to preside had not this incident, it was difficult to perceive, what other