had it purchased at this rate, and would still have gladly paid my full proportion of its price. Sir, I rejoice in the self-vindicating power of the Constitution, which this crisis has displayed,

I repeat it, Mr. Chairman, THE SELF-VINDICATING POWER OF THE CONSTITUTION, for that seems to me the very key and index of the whole catastrophe. The first object and operation of the Constitution was to revive a prostrate commerce, to restore a fallen credit, to raise up a depreciated and still sinking currency. And was it not entirely fit and appropriate that commerce, and currency, and credit, should give signs and warnings, when that Constitution was violated and trampled upon, by their own depression and downfall? For myself, I thank my God that it has been so. I pray him that the public prosperity may never survive the public liberty. I pray him that whenever that liberty may be menaced, whenever the Constitution assailed, whenever the wide arch of this glorious Republic in danger of falling, the people, the whole people, may be roused up to the rescue, if in no other way, by their own sufferings and distresses!

THE VOTES OF INTERESTED MEMBERS

A DECISION PRONOUNCED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF MASSACHUSETTS, FEBRUARY 19, 1840.

A BILL to increase the capital stock of the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company being under consideration, and Mr. Church, of Westport, having moved an amendment in the following terms: "The private property of the Corporation, or Stockholders for the time being, and of those who shall be stockholders at the time when any debt shall be contracted, shall be holden for the payment of such debt, and may be taken therefor on any execution issued against the Corporation for such debt, in the same manner as on executions issued against them for individual debts. Any Stockholder who shall pay any debt of the Corporation for which he is made liable, by this Act, shall have the same remedies for the recovery of the amount so paid, or any part thereof, as is provided in the 32d Sec. of the 38th Chap. of the Revised Statutes;" and the yeas and nays having been taken on this amendment, Mr. Allen, of Northfield called upon the Speaker to disallow the votes of Messrs. Safford and Quincy, of Boston, and of Mr. Baker, of Dorchester, as being Stockholders in the Corporation, and as being therefore precluded from voting, under the fourteenth rule of the 2d chapter of the Rules and Orders, which is as follows:

"No member shall be permitted to vote, or serve on any Committee, in any question where his private right is immediately concerned, distinct from the public interest.'

The Speaker decided that those gentlemen did not come within the meaning of the rule, and declined excluding them from the count. From this decision Mr. Allen appealed, and thereupon the Speaker stated his reasons as follows:

THE SPEAKER said that he had already remarked to the House that the point which had been raised by the gentleman from Northfield was by no means a new one to him. During the first session in which he had the honor to occupy the chair of the House, he was twice called on to decide it. On both of those occasions he spared no pains in examining the authorities and precedents on the subject; on both of them he had the satisfaction to arrive at a clear and unhesitating conviction in

his own mind; and on both of them, too, he had the still greater satisfaction of being sustained by a large majority of the House.

The first of these cases was that of one or more Bank Directors and Stockholders, whom it was proposed to exclude from serving on a committee of one from each county, to which had been referred a memorial from the Associated Banks, on the subject of the suspension of specie payments. The Speaker

decided that Bank Directors and Stockholders were entitled to serve on such a committee under the rule; and that decision, after a long argument in opposition to it by a gentleman not now a member, was sustained, 337 to 97.

The second case was that of sundry Stockholders in the Western Railroad Corporation, whom it was proposed to exclude from voting on the bill for granting the credit of the State in aid of the enterprise in which that Corporation were engaged. The Speaker decided that those Stockholders were entitled to their votes; and that decision, also, was sustained, 238 to 43.

These cases differed considerably from each other, and both of them, in some degree, from that now under consideration. The former related to a whole class of corporations, the doctrine advanced in opposition to the Chair being, on that occasion, that no director or stockholder in the one hundred and eighteen banks in this Commonwealth could serve on any committee, or give any vote on any question, relating to banks and banking. The latter related only to a single corporation, and in this respect was analogous to the case before the House. It was obvious, however, that all three of them involved the same. general principles, and must be governed by the same parliamentary precedents.

There was one point in which the Speaker said he was glad to find that all these cases agreed. In neither of them did his decision affect results. The committee, on which the bank director was permitted to serve, could of course do nothing final. Their proceedings, like those of all other committees, were controlled by the House. So also in the second case, had all the stockholders in the Western Railroad Corporation, who were members of the House, been deprived of the right of voting, the aid of the State would still have been granted by a handsome majority. And so

in the present instance, too, should the three gentlemen who have been named as stockholders be excluded from the count, there would remain a majority of thirty-seven to dispose of the amendment of the gentleman from Westport. The Speaker trusted that these circumstances would insure to the question on the present occasion, as they doubtless had in the previous. instances in which it had been raised, a more calm, deliberate, and dispassionate investigation, than if an important issue were immediately involved in its settlement.

Such an investigation he thought it eminently deserved. In his judgment it was a question of high importance and of farreaching responsibility. Other corporations were concerned in its settlement beside the Sandwich Glass Company;-corporations of a different class and character. The real question before the House was, whether the city of Boston should be deprived of two of its members legally chosen and duly qualified, and the town of Dorchester of one third of its rightful representation here, on an allegation that the private interests of the members referred to were inconsistent with a faithful discharge of their duty to their constituents? It was the right of the towns and cities, and not of the members themselves, which was really at stake in this and in all similar cases. And gentlemen would do well to bear in mind, that though the controversy might now relate to a city and a town which perhaps could afford to spare a vote or two, it might next be raised in relation to such as had but one Representative, and thus disfranchise them altogether on particular questions.

The Speaker said that as often as he had reflected on this view of the case, and it had been again and again the subject of his examination, he had been led to doubt both the policy and the justice of retaining in our Rules and Orders any such principle as that under which the question had been raised. The power of the House in all matters relating to their own proceedings might, perhaps, be unquestionable. The Constitution expressly gave them such a power and he supposed it to be absolute. They might silence members, he presumed, not merely in the case provided for, but in any or all other cases, subject only to their responsibility to the people. But power was obvi

ously one thing, and right another. And he had often been led to question the right by which any portion of the Representatives of the people could say to any other portion, except where it might be absolutely essential to their own self-defence and self-preservation as a deliberative, legislative body, that they should not exercise the common and acknowledged privileges and powers of membership. All were here by similar titles and upon similar terms. We were the Representatives of the several communities which had elected us, and our responsibilities were to them, and not to each other. And it would seem no inappropriate reply, to any one who should attempt to interfere with another in the exercise of his duty as a member, and to exclude him in any case from his equal share in the collective will of the House, upon some allegation of his being disqualified for the service which his fellow-citizens had assigned him,"Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he shall stand or fall."

The Speaker confessed, therefore, that, as a matter of principle, he was opposed to the rule altogether. But it had come down to us from a distant antiquity, and had been annually incorporated into our parliamentary system. It was his duty, accordingly, as the servant of the House, to observe and execute it. And he should not shrink from doing so, wherever its execution was called for. But the same views which had led him to question its justice in the abstract, would lead him also, now and always, to give it the narrowest possible construction. He desired to be personally instrumental in depriving as few of the Representatives of the people as might be, of what seemed to him their just and rightful prerogative. And he had no hesitation in repeating what he said on this subject three years ago, that he should very much prefer to have any one or any number of his decisions set aside by the House, than to be guilty himself of setting aside the vote of a single member in a case in any degree doubtful.

Nor did scruples like these seem to have been confined to himself. Old as the rule was, and incorporated, as it had been, into all our legislative systems, national and State, it seemed to have been a very rare occurrence for it to be enforced, or even