Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/322

 314 contumacious. And even to the duration of imprisonment a period is imposed by the nature of things; since the existence of the power, that imprisons, is indispensable to its continuance; and although the legislative power continues perpetual, the legislative body ceases to exist on the moment of its adjournment or periodical dissolution. It follows, that imprisonment must terminate with that adjournment.

"This view of the subject necessarily sets bounds to the exercise of a caprice, which has sometimes disgraced deliberative assemblies, when under the influence of strong passions or wicked leaders, but the instances of which have long since remained on record only, as historical facts, not as precedents for imitation. In the present fixed and settled state of English institutions, there is no more danger of their being revived, probably, than in our own.

"But the American legislative bodies have never possessed, or pretended to, the omnipotence, which constitutes the leading feature in the legislative assembly of Great Britain, and which may have led occasionally to the exercise of caprice, under the specious appearance of merited resentment.

"If it be inquired, what security is there, that with an officer avowing himself devoted to their will, the house of representatives will confine its punishing power to the limits of imprisonment, and not push it to the infliction of corporeal punishment, or even death, and exercise it in cases affecting the liberty of speech and of the press? The reply is to be found in the consideration, that the constitution was formed in and for an advanced state of society, and rests at every point on received opinions and fixed ideas. It is not a new creation, but a combination of existing materials, whose properties and attributes were familiarly understood, and had been determined by reiterated experiments. It is not, therefore, reasoning upon things, as they are, to suppose, that any deliberative assembly, constituted under it, would ever assert any other rights and powers, than those, which had been established by long practice, and conceded by public opinion. Melancholy, also, would be that state of distrust, which rests not a hope upon a moral influence. The most absolute tyranny could not subsist, where men could not be trusted with power, because they might abuse it, much less a government, which has no other basis, than the sound morals, moderation, and good sense of those, who compose it. Unreasonable jealousies not only blight the pleasures, but dissolve the very texture of society.

"But it is argued, that the inference, if any, arising under the constitution, is against the exercise of the powers here asserted by the house latter, by a reprimand by the speaker. So in 1800, in the case of William Duane, for a printed libel against the senate, the party was held guilty of a contempt, and