ries across streams, at points wholly within this State. 4th. For authorizing the sale or mortgage of real or personal property of minors or others under disability. 5th. For locating or changing any county seat. 6th. For assessment or collection of taxes, or for extending the time for the collection thereof. 7th. For granting corporate powers or privileges, except to cities. 8th. For authorizing the apportionment of any part of the school fund. 9th. For incorporating any town or village, or to amend the charter thereof.

SECTION 32. The Legislature shall provide general laws for the transaction of any business that may be prohibited by section thirty-one of this article, and all such laws shall be uniform in their operation throughout the State.

ARTICLE VII.

[Amendment proposed by the Legislature of 1871.]

SECTION 4. The Supreme Court of this State, with the jurisdiction and powers prescribed in this Constitution, shall consist of one Chief Justice and four Associate Justices, to be elected by the qualified electors of the State at such times and in such manner as the Legislature may provide, and such court so constituted shall not be changed or discontinued by the Legislature. The Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court now in office shall hold their offices for the remainder of the terms for which they were respectively elected, and until the election and qualification of the two additional Associate Justices herein provided for, shall constitute the Supreme Court of this State. This [the] Legislature shall at its first session after the adoption of this amendment, provide by law for the election of the two additional Associate Justices hereby required, and their successors, and for the election of the successors of the Chief Justice and Associate Justices now in office, and for classifying the two additional Associate Justices first elected, so that the term of office of one of them shall be four years and of the other six years. The term of office of the Chief Justice and of each Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, elected after the adoption of this amendment, except as herein otherwise provided, shall be six years.

MANUAL OF PARLIAMENTARY PRACTICE.

NOTE.-The rules and practices peculiar ta the SENATE are printed between brackets, []. Those of PARLIAMENT are not so distinguished.

Importance of Rules.

SECTION I.

IMPORTANCE OF ADHERRING TO RULES.

Mr. ONSLOW, the ablest among the Speakers of the House of Commons, used to say: "It was a maxim he had often heard when he was a young man, from old and experienced Members, that nothing tended more to throw power into the hands of the administration, and those who acted with the majority of the House of Commons, than a neglect of or departure from, the rules of proceeding; that these forms, as instituted by our ancestors, operated as a check and control on the actions of the majority, and that they were, in many instances, a shelter and protection to the minority, against the attempts of power." So far the maxim is certainly true, and it is founded in good sense, that as it is always in the power of the majority, by their numbers, to stop any improper measures proposed on the part of their opponents, the only weapons by which the minority can defend themselves against similar attempts from those in power, are the forms and rules of proceeding which have been adopted as they were found necessary, from time to time, and are become the law of the House; by a strict adherence to which, the weaker party can only be protected from those irregularities and abuses which these forms were intended to check, and which the wantonness of power is but too often apt to suggest to large and successful majorities. 2 Hats., 171, 172.

And whether these forms be in all cases the most rational or not, is really not of so great importance. It is much more material that there should be a rule to go by, than what that rule is; that there may be a uniformity of proceeding in business, not subject to the caprice of the Speaker, or captiousness of the Members. It is very material that order, decency, and regularity be preserved in a dignified public body. 2 Hats., 149.

SECTION II.

LEGISLATIVE.

[All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. Constitution of the United States, Art. 1, Sec. 1.]

5-MANUAL.

[The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services to be ascertained by law and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. Constitution of the United States, Art. 1, Sec. 6.]

[For the powers of Congress, see the following Articles and Sections of the Constitution of the United States. I, 4, 7, 8, 9. II, 1, 2. III, 3. IV, 1, 3, 5, and all the amendments.]

SECTION III.

PRIVILEGE.

The privileges of Members of Parliament, from small and obscure beginnings, have been advancing for centuries with a firm and never yielding pace. Claims seem to have been brought forward from time to time, and repeated, till some example of their admission enabled them to build law on that example. We can only, therefore, state the points of progression at which they now are. It is now acknowledged, 1st. That they are at all times exempted from question elsewhere for anything said in their own House; that during the time of privilege, 2d. Neither a Member himself, his1 wife, nor his servants, (familaries sui,) for any matter of their own, may be 2 arrested on mesne process, in any civil suit: 3d. Nor be detained under execution, though levied before time of privilege: 4th. Nor impleaded, cited or subpoenaed in any court: 5th, Nor summoned as a witness or juror: 6th. Nor may their lands or goods be distrained: 7th. Nor their persons assaulted, or characters traduced. And the period of time covered by privilege, before and after the session, with the practice of short prorogations under the connivance of the Crown, amounts in fact to a perpetual protection against the course of justice. In one instance, indeed, it has been relaxed by the 10 G. 3, c. 50, which permits judiciary proceedings to go on against them. That these privileges must be continually progressive, seems to result from their rejecting all definition of them; the doctrine being that "their dignity and independence are preserved by keeping their privileges indefinite; and that the maxims upon which they proceed, together with the method of proceeding, rest entirely in their own breast, and are not defined and ascertained by any particular stated laws."" 1 Blackst., 163, 164.

[It was probably from this view of the encroaching character of privilege that the framers of our Constitution, in their care to provide that the law shall bind equally on all, and especially that those who make them shall not exempt themselves from their operation, have only privileged "Senators and Representative" themselves from the single act of "arrest in all cases except treason, felony and breach of the peace, during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same, and from being questioned in any other place for any speech or debate in either House." Const., U. S., Art. 1, Sec. 6. Under the general authority" to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers given them," Const., U. S., Art. 2, Sec. 8, they may provide by law the details which may be

1 Order of House of Commons 1663, July 16.

2 Elsynge, 217; 1 Hats., 21; Gray's Deb., 133.