CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



157 



Inurnment of tho Senate is simply in the nature 

 of ti ivivss. But, Mr. President, that is not 

 isu with tlio House of Representative* at 

 all. In tli- House it is just the reverse. The 

 i- from Ohio (Mr. Thurmun) ays, thut 

 u im-iulu-rot' tho House is elected for two years. 

 So IK- }*. That is tho term proscribed by tho 

 Constitution. Ho says that he is paid when 

 C.NI^IVS- is not in session. First, ho was paid 

 a per diem only when Congress was in session ; 

 after ward it was changed to a salary by the 

 year; but that certainly does not affect the 

 question of the legal existence of tho House. 

 We speak in general of 'Congress,' two years. 

 But, so far as the legal existence of the House 

 of Representatives is concerned, how can wo 

 conceive of that when tho members have never 

 com 3 together, their credentials have never 

 been examined, and they have no officers 

 elected ? There is no House of Representatives 

 until it is organized." 



Mr. SauUbury, of Delaware, said: "Mr. 

 President, I do not concur in all that I have 

 heard on this question. I differ from the views 

 expressed by the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Thur- 

 iiian i. 1 do not regard the House of Repre- 

 sentatives as being at all times an organized 

 body. While it is true that the House of Rep- 

 resentatives is one of the departments of this 

 Government, yet there are periods when there 

 is no organization of the body, according to 

 tho view which I take, and the members of 

 the House of Representatives in each Con- 

 gress have the right to adopt their own rules, 

 and the rules provided by the previous Con- 

 gress are not obligatory upon them. But I do 

 not concur in the views expressed by the other 

 Senator from Ohio (Mr. Sherman), that it is 

 competent for this body to annul, at pleasure, 

 any joint rule between the two Houses. The 

 view which I take of these joint rules is that, 

 as they require the concurrent action of both 

 Houses, they partake of the nature of a statute, 

 and that neither House may annul a joint rule 

 without tho concurrence of tho body that 

 helped enact it. I therefore do not believe 

 that it is competent for the Senate of the Unit- 

 ed States to annul the twenty-second joint 

 rule, nor do I believe that it is competent for 

 the House, after its having been enacted or 

 ordered by the concurrent action of both 

 Houses, without the concurrent action of both 

 Houses to render it null and void. This is the 

 view I take of the joint rules." 



Mr. Conkling: "Mr. President, I dispose 

 sufficiently of the whole question as it presents 

 itself to me by turning to the Constitution and 

 finding that 'the House of Representatives 

 shall be composed of members chosen every 

 second year by the people of the several 

 States,' and so on, and by seeing further that 

 4 tho Congress shall assemble at least once in 

 i-very year; and such meeting shall be on the 

 first Monday in December, unless they shall by 

 law appoint a different day,' as it in the begin- 

 ning was determined by law and as it has been 



niiice. I find my way sufficiently clear when I 

 see that once in two year* the member* of the 

 House of Representatives are ruchoacn, not 

 mime of them but all of them, thus supplying 

 anew the whole personnel, the whole incur im- 

 tion (if 1 may so speak) of that House. Now, 

 by settled usage in that case, in analogous 

 cases, and by usage, a it seems to me very 

 clearly within the attributes and within the 

 prerogatives of the House, each Congress (as it 

 is called for convenience, as the Senator from 

 Ohio says) proceeds to take its own orders, to 

 make its own rules under the express permis- 

 sion of the Constitution of the United States. 

 When tho Senate concurs in a joint rule, a con- 

 current rule, tho Senate assents to the making 

 of rules by the House, if they proceed from the 

 House, extending as to those rules to this body. 

 It assents by adopting them as a part of its own 

 rules. Should any House undertake to make 

 rules to govern a succeeding House, I conceive 

 the action would be entirely nugatory ; and, if 

 so, it follows as a matter of course that a rule 

 made by one House, although the Senate may 

 be a party to it, if it is designed to bind a suc- 

 ceeding House, is as void as it would be were 

 it a rule for the House alone. Certainly the 

 House would have no greater prerogative, no 

 more far-reaching prerogative in the establish- 

 ment of a rule, if it happens to be a rule to 

 which some other body is to be a party, than it 

 would have were it a rule for the government 

 of itself, supposing all the time that it be a rule 

 in the strict sense of that word as distinguished 

 from a statute or from that kind of joint reso- 

 lution which a Senator over the way had in 

 mind when he inquired whether the signature 

 of the President had ever been attached to this 

 rule. 



" If I be right in that, Mr. President, it is very 

 clear that in every Congress as it is called 

 (adopting again this term for convenience), the 

 House of Representatives is obliged to adopt 

 rules in some form for its government ; and it 

 is very clear that the resolution referred to by 

 the Senator from Oregon, adopted by the 

 House at the commencement of the session, was 

 an expedient, competent, and orderly proceed- 

 ing. If that resolution covered, as perhaps it 

 did, the joint rules of the two Houses, it brings 

 to us the question whether we will adopt those 

 joint rules. Now, undoubtedly it would be 

 competent for the Senate, sub silentio (as the 

 Senator from Massachusetts said touching an- 

 other matter), by acquiescence, by that silence 

 which implies consent, to go on and observe 

 the joint rules. That it seems has been done 

 repeatedly, perhaps usually, before. It would 

 have happened now very likely but for the fact 

 that every Senator who has regarded this sub- 

 ject at all cannot have failed to feel that we 

 were called upon to take some action touching 

 the twenty-second joint rule, which it has been 

 said by the Senator from Delaware and by 

 other Senators involves very grave dangers. A 

 resolution was offered by the Senator from 



