Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/320

 312 either as an instance of abundant caution, or a legislative declaration, that the power of punishing for contempts shall not extend beyond its known and acknowledged limits of fine and imprisonment.

"But it is contended, that if this power in the house of representatives is to be asserted on the plea of necessity, the ground is too broad, and the result too indefinite; that the executive, and every co-ordinate, and even subordinate, branch of the government, may resort to the same justification, and the whole assume to themselves, in the exercise of this power, the most tyrannical licentiousness.

"This is unquestionably an evil to be guarded against, and if the doctrine may be pushed to that extent, it must be a bad doctrine, and is justly denounced.

"But what is the alternative? The argument obviously leads to the total annihilation of the power of the house of representatives to guard itself from contempts; and leaves it exposed to every indignity and interruption, that rudeness, caprice, or even conspiracy, may meditate against it. This result is fraught with too much absurdity not to bring into doubt the soundness of any argument, from which it is derived. That a deliberate assembly, clothed with the majesty of the people, and charged with the care of all, that is dear to them; composed of the most distinguished citizens, selected and drawn together from every quarter of a great nation; whose deliberations are required by public opinion to be conducted under the eye of the public, and whose decisions must be clothed with all that sanctity, which unlimited confidence in their wisdom and purity can inspire; that such an assembly should not possess the power to suppress rudeness, or repel insult, is a supposition too wild to be suggested. And accordingly to avoid the pressure of these considerations, it has been argued, that the right of the respective houses to exclude from their presence, and their absolute control within their own walls, carry with them the right to punish contempts committed in their presence; while the absolute legislative power given to congress within this district, enables them to provide by law against all other insults, against which there is any necessity for providing.

"It is to be observed, that so far as the issue of this cause is implicated, this argument yields all right of the plaintiff* in error to a decision in his favour; for, non constat, from the pleadings, but that this warrant issued for an offence committed in the immediate presence of the house. given to a member, which was held a breach of privilege; and in May, 1832, in the case of Samuel Houston, for an assault upon a member for words spoken