Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/315

 CH. XII.] colonial assemblies in general, whatever may have been thought, as to particular exercises of it. Nor is this power to be viewed in an unfavourable light. It is a privilege, not of the members of either house; but, like all other privileges of congress, mainly intended as a privilege of the people, and for their benefit. Mr. Justice Blackstone has, with great force, said, that laws, without a competent authority to secure their administration from disobedience and contempt, would be vain and nugatory. A power, therefore, in the supreme courts of justice to suppress such contempts, &c., results from the first principles of judicial establishments, and must be an inseparable attendant upon every superior tribunal. And the same reasoning has been applied, with equal force, by another learned commentator to legislative bodies. "It would," says he, be inconsistent with the nature of such a body to deny it the power of protecting itself from injury, or insult. If its deliberations are not perfectly free, its constituents are eventually injured. This powder has never been denied in any country, and is incidental to the nature of all legislative bodies. If it possesses such a powder in the case of an immediate insult or disturbance, preventing the exercise of its ordinary functions, it is impossible to deny it in other cases, which, although less immediate or violent, partake of the same character, by having a tendency to impair the firm and honest discharge of public duties.

§ 844. This subject has of late undergone a great deal of discussion both in England and America; and