DISCIPLINARY POWER OF LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES. 



203 



time the brow of the author with the crown of 

 a martyr, and stubbornly to trample under foot 

 the most incontestable rights of the electors. 

 As Mr. Grenville had predicted, Wilkes was 

 re-elected without opposition. On the next 

 day the House decided that, " having been ex- 

 pelled at this session, he had become and was 

 incompetent to be elected or to sit in the present 

 Parliament." Consequently the election was 

 annulled, but Wilkes was chosen again with- 

 out opposition and by an increased majority. 

 Then, in order to prevent the fruitless trials, 

 an expedient was devised. Another member 

 of Parliament obtained from the Chancellor of 

 the Exchequer the appointment of " Steward 

 of Chiltern Hundreds," and put himself on 

 the lists against Wilkes. Having been defeated, 

 Mr. Luttrel addressed to the House a protest 

 against the election of his opponent. The 

 House decided that, notwithstanding Wilkes 

 had obtained a majority of the votes he had 

 received eleven hundred and forty-three votes 

 against two hundred and forty-four it was 

 Mr. Luttrel who should be declared to be 

 elected, and the count was changed to that 

 end. In vain the electors of Middlesex pro- 

 tested ; in vain Burke and Grenville addressed 

 the House with most indignant utterances it 

 persisted in its decision. The popularity of 

 Wilkes immediately increased in immense pro- 

 portions; he was elected an alderman of the 

 City of London and a subscription was raised 

 to pay his debts. At the same time a formi- 

 dable opposition arose against the House of 

 Commons, not only in the judiciary depart- 

 ments, where protests were made in the name 

 of law and right, not only in the House of 

 Peers, where Lord Chatham denounced with 

 his powerful voice the injustice to the electors 

 of Middlesex, but even in their hall George 

 Saville made two efforts, at the risk of his own 

 liberty, to accuse the House of having betrayed 

 the rights of the people. But it was a useless 

 labor; the House continued stubborn in its 

 blind resistance. The City of London, through 

 its magistrates, addressed the King in language 

 stamped with unexampled boldness, showing 

 that "the majority of the House of Commons 

 had deprived the people of their dearest rights," 

 and demanding that the King should consent 

 to restore constitutional government and pub- 

 lic tranquillity by dissolving the Parliament 

 and removing from his councils the bad minis- 

 ters. The King replied that he regretted that 

 any of his subjects had been so far misled as 

 to address to him remonstrances which were 

 disrespectful to himself, injurious to Parlia- 

 ment, and incompatible with the principles of 

 the Constitution. But this new denial of jus- 

 tice did not silence the opposition. Lord Chat- 

 ham wrote that " no document had ever come 

 from the throne more unconstitutional or more 

 dangerous if it was permitted to pass without 

 a reply." Finally, after incessant efforts re- 

 peated at each session by Burke and Saville, 

 after a new Parliament had been chosen and 



Wilkes re-elected, the House of Commons, 

 overcome by the evidence of its wrongs as 

 much as by the denunciations of the public, 

 pronounced its own condemnation by opening 

 its doors to Wilkes after eighteen years of pro- 

 scription, and by erasing from the record its 

 own decision on the subject of ineligibility, as 

 subversive of the rights of the whole electoral 

 body of the kingdom. 



EXPULSIONS. Under the later practice of 

 Parliament, according to May, expulsion is gen- 

 erally for such breaches as render a member 

 incapable of holding his seat, and as would 

 injure the respect of Parliament, if they were 

 permitted to pass without punishment. Mem- 

 bers have been expelled who had been engaged 

 in rebellion, or were guilty of forgery, perjury, 

 deception, treason, prevarication in judicial of- 

 fice, or in the exercise of their duties as mem- 

 bers of the House, or for acts unbecoming an 

 officer and a man of honor, or for injurious 

 writings, or for deeds directed against the 

 House itself. But, at present, great prudence 

 is observed in the exercise of this power. The 

 history of the last three centuries shows that 

 the penalties of Parliament have been success- 

 ively modified under the influence of manners 

 and political progress. In 1838 O'Connell was 

 charged with accusing, in a public meeting, 

 many of his colleagues as guilty of shameful 

 perjury in the discharge of their duties on an 

 electoral commission. He acknowledged that 

 he had used the expressions, and was declared 

 to be guilty of a violation of privilege, and by 

 a resolution of the House was punished simply 

 by a reprimand from the Speaker. Other in- 

 stances could be mentioned, but our limits will 

 not permit. 



THE CLdxuRE. The cloture, or the adoption 

 of some rule by which all debate on a question 

 may be closed, and the House brought to a di- 

 rect vote, has excited the attention of the Eng- 

 lish public for some years. Scarcely a session 

 of the Congress of the United States has been 

 held during many years without an effort on 

 the part of the minority in one of the Houses, 

 and usually in the House of Representatives, 

 to defeat the passage by the majority of some 

 important bill, or to secure a special amend- 

 ment to the same. The bill is generally looked 

 upon by the minority as politically very objec- 

 tionable, or as containing some very objectiona- 

 ble features. If brought to a final vote it would 

 be quickly passed by the majority, and the ob- 

 ject of the minority is to prevent its reaching 

 that vote at all, or until some important amend- 

 ments have been conceded. Near the close of 

 the session the bill is called up for further con- 

 sideration, or for its final passage, and the mi- 

 nority commence their efforts for its delay, or 

 defeat, or " obstruction," as it is called in the 

 House of Commons. These consist in numer- 

 ous speeches, motions to adjourn, on which the 

 yeas and nays are called, and an unlimited 

 number of amendments, each of which can be 

 discussed and voted upon as a distinct question. 



