2. When any member is about to speak in debate, or deliver any matter to this House, he shall rise from his seat, and without advancing from thence, shall, with due respect address himself to MR. SPEAKER, confining himself strictly to the point in debate, avoiding all indecent and disrespectful language.

3. No member shall speak more than twice in the same debate, without leave.

4. A question being once determined must stand as the judgment of the House, and cannot again be drawn into debate during the same session.

5. While the Speaker is reporting or putting any question, none shall entertain private discourse, read, stand up, walk into, out of, or across the House.

6. No member shall vote on any question, in the event of which he is immediately interested, or in any other case where he was not present when the question was put by the Speaker, or Chairman in any committee.

7. Every member who shall be in the House when any question is put, shall, on a decision, be counted on the one side or the other.

8. Each day, before the House proceed to any other business, the Clerk shall read the orders of the day. 9. All bills shall be read and dispatched according to the order in which they are brought in, unless the House shall direct otherwise in particular cases.

10. The Clerk of this House shall not suffer any records or papers to be taken from the table or out of his custody, by any member or other person: Provided, however, That he shall deliver to any member who may desire it, any bills depending before the House, on taking a receipt for the same.

11. A majority of the Delegates of the Commonwealth shall be necessary to proceed to business, and every question shall be determined according to the vote of the majority of the members present: any smaller number, together with the Speaker, shall be sufficient to adjourn, and thirty to call a House and send for the absent, and make any orders for their censure or discharge.

12. When the House is to rise, every member shall keep his seat until the Speaker passes him.

13. The Journals of the House shall be daily drawn up by the Clerk, and, after being examined by the Speaker, be printed and delivered without delay.

14. Eleven of the committee of Propositions and Grievances, seven of the committee of Privileges and Elections, and five of any other committee, shall be a sufficient number to proceed to business.

15. Any person shall be at liberty to sue out an original writ of subpœna in Chancery, in order to prevent a bar by the statute of limitations, or to file any bill in Equity, to examine witnesses thereupon, for the sole purpose of preserving their testimony against any member of this House, notwithstanding his privilege: Provided, That the Clerk, after having made out and signed such original writ, shall not deliver the same to the party, or to any other, during the continuance of that privilege.

16. Any person summoned to attend this House, or any committee thereof, as a witness in any matter depending before them, shall be privileged from arrest, during his coming to, attending on, or going from the House or Committee; and no such witness shall be obliged to attend, until the party, at whose request he shall be summoned, do pay, or secure to him, for his attendance and travelling, the same allowance which is made to witnesses attending the General Court.

17. If any person shall tamper with any witness, in respect to their evidence to be given in this House, or any committee thereof, or directly or indirectly endeavor to deter or hinder any person from appearing or giving evidence, the same is declared to be a high crime or misdemeanor, and this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offender.

18. No person shall be taken into custody by the Serjeant at Arms, on any complaint of a breach of privilege, until the matter of such complaint shall be examined by the committee of Privileges and Elections, and reported to the House.

19. The Serjeant's fees shall be as follows, to wit: for taking any person into custody, two dollars; for every day he shall be detained in custody, two dollars; for sending a messenger to take any person into custody, by warrant from the Speaker, eight cents per mile for going, and the same for returning, besides ferriages.

20. The engrossed and enrolled bills shall be written in a fair round hand.

21. On a call of the House, the doors shall not be shut against any member until his name is once enrolled. 22. When any member shall keep his seat two days after having obtained leave of absence, such leave shall be void.

23. Henceforth, no business shall be introduced, taken up, or considered, after twelve o'clock, until the orders of the day shall be disposed of, except messages from the Executive or Senate; and among the orders of the day, all such as relate to the community in general, shall have priority of consideration to such as are of a local or private nature. WHEREAS the relation between the constituent and representative renders it necessary that the former should be well informed of the conduct of the latter, in the discharge of the important trust to him committed, to the end that the people may have it in their power to encourage the meritorious, and discontinue the undeserving: 24. Any member on his motion made for that purpose, on being seconded, provided seven of the members present be in favour of the motion, shall have a right to have the ayes and noes taken upon the determination of any question, provided he shall give notice of his intention to call the ayes and noes before the question be put, and in such case the house shall not divide or be counted on the question, but the names of the members shall be called over by the Clerk, and the ayes and noes shall be respectively entered on the Journal, and the question shall be decided as a majority of votes shall thereupon appear; Provided, that, after the ayes and noes shall have been separately taken, and before they are counted, or entered on the Journal, the Clerk shall read over the names of those

who voted in the affirmative, and of those who voted in the negative: and any member shall have liberty, at such reading, to correct any mistake which may have been committed, in listing his name, either in the affirmative or negative.

25. In future, the election of Governor or Supreme Magistrate, Members of the Privy Council, Senators to Congress, and all other persons, who, by the Constitution or laws of this State, are directed to be chosen by joint ballot of both Houses, shall be made without the necessity of any previous nomination in either House.

26. Seats within this House, such as the Speaker shall direct, shall be set apart for the use of the members of the Senate, and of the Executive, of the judges of the Superior Courts of this State, and of the United States, and of such other persons as the Speaker may think proper to invite within the bar.

27. No memorial or petition shall be received, praying for the division of any county or parish, changing the place of holding any Court or other local matter, unless the purport of the said petition or memorial shall have been fixed at the door of the Court-House or other house of holding Courts of the county where such alteration is proposed, at two different courts, and shall have remained there one day during the sitting of each court, one month at least previous to offering the same; and no petition or memorial shall be received, or bill brought in for establishing or discontinuing ferries, or other matters affecting private right or property, unless the party or parties interested shall have one month's notice thereof if known to the petitioners, and if not known, the purport of such memorial, petition, or bill, shall be set up at the Court-house, or other place of holding Courts in the manner before directed, and also three times inserted in some newspaper of the State, the most convenient for conveying the intended information, one month before offering or moving the same.

28. No petition shall be received claiming a sum of money, or praying the settlement of unliquidated accounts, unless it be accompanied with a certificate from the Executive or Auditor of Public Accounts, that the said claim had been laid before them respectively, and containing the reasons why they refused to settle the same: Provided, that this order shall not extend to any person applying for the pension.

29. At the beginning of every stated annual session, the Speaker shall appoint a Committee for inspecting, examining and reporting the state and condition of the office of the Clerk, and the papers thereunto belonging.

30. The Clerk of this House shall publish with the laws of each session, such resolutions as are of a general nature, annexing marginal notes to every such law and resolution, and subjoin an index to the whole.

31. The petitioner, who contests the election of a member returned to serve in this House, is entitled to receive his wages only from the day on which such petitioner is declared duly elected.

32. The appointment of any person to an office in the Executive or Judiciary Departments of this Commonwealth, shall not disqualify him, being a member, from sitting and voting in the House of Delegates, until he shall have qualified under his appointment.

33. The period of fifteen days from the day on which the House of Delegates annually form a House, shall be prescribed for the reception of petitions, Sundays excluded.

S4. In future, messages between the two Houses of the General Assembly may be interchanged by the Clerks of the two Houses, at such time between the hour of adjournment and that of meeting on the following day, as that the subject matter of the said messages be read by the Clerks respectively, immediately after the orders of the day.

35. The several committees are instructed to report in all cases referred to them, whether other cases may exist or arise, comprised within the principle of that stated by the petitioner; in which event, should a bill be ordered to be brought in, it is so to be drawn, as to provide for such cases, as well as that which gave rise to it.

36. No petition of a private nature, having been once rejected, shall be a second time acted on, unless it shall be supported by new evidence, nor shall any such petition, after a third disallowance, be again acted on. The several clerks of committees shall henceforth keep, for the use of the said committees, an alphabetical list of all such petitions, specifying the sessions at which they were presented, and the determination of the House thereon, and shall moreover deliver to the clerk of this House, the original petitions, to be by him preserved in his office.

37. It shall be the rule of this House, in all cases of balloting, to fill or create one vacancy only at a time. 38. So much of the standing rule of the House, as confines the number of a select committee to seven, shall be rescinded, and such committees be composed of some number not less than five nor more than thirteen.

39. It shall be one of the standing rules of this House, that the committee of Privileges and Elections shall report to the House in all cases of privilege or contested election, to them referred, the principles and reasons upon which

their resolutions shall be founded.

40. In future, it shall be a standing rule of this House, to appoint annually a committee, whose duty it shall be to examine into the expenditure of the Executive Department for the last year, and to call on them for any information

relative thereto.

41. At the beginning of every stated annual session, the Speaker shall appoint a committee of Finance, whose duty it shall be to examine into the state of debts due from the Commonwealth; of the revenue and expenditures of the preceding year, and to prepare an estimate of the expenses of the succeeding year.

42. It shall be a standing rule of this House, that the Speaker be authorised to call any member of this House to occupy the chair, and exercise the functions of Speaker, until he may resume the chair; with this proviso, that the power given by this resolution shall not be construed to confer on the Speaker a right to place any member in the chair of the Speaker for a longer period than one day.

43. In all cases of joint ballot by both Houses for the election or removal of any officer, if on the first ballot no person shall have a majority of the whole number, on the second ballot the person who had the smallest number of votes shall not be balloted for; and so on each succeeding ballot, till some person shall have a majority of the whole.

44. It shall be the duty of the Clerk of this House to make an alphabetical schedule annually of the several petitions presented during the session, with a short analysis of each, for the information of the next Legislature.

45. At the beginning of every annual session, the Speaker, shall appoint a committee to examine the Register's office, and a committee to examine into the state of the Public Jail and Penitentiary.

46. In all cases wherein a division of the House, on any question propounded from the chair, is rendered necessary, in the opinion of the Speaker, by the equality of sound, or required by the motion of any member, the members voting on the question which occasions such division shall be required to rise in their places; and, if on a general view of the House, a doubt shall still remain in the Speaker, or any member thereof, on what side the majority is, the members shall be counted standing in their places, either by the Speaker, or by two members, of opposite opinions on the question, to be deputed for that purpose by the Speaker.

47. At the beginning of every session, the Speaker shall appoint a committee to examine the enrolled bills, and also a committee of Schools and Colleges.

48. The committee appointed to examine the ballot boxes shall take no notice of any blanks found therein. 49. Resolved, That hereafter at the commencement of each session of the General Assembly of Virginia, it shall be the duty of the Speaker of the House of Delegates to appoint a committee of thirteen members, whose duty it shall be to examine the accounts of the Auditor of Public Accounts for the fiscal year preceding their appointment, to ascertain whether or not the warrants from that department have been issued upon legal and sufficient evidence; and also to examine into the state and condition of the office generally; all which shall be referred to the House of Delegates for their consideration.

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The Speaker laid before the House a letter from the Governor to himself, accompanied with an address to this house; which letter and address were read, as follows: CITY OF RICHMOND, Council Chamber in the Capitol, December 8, 1821. SIR-I have the honor to present to you the enclosed paper, with my request that you will lay it before the House of Delegates. Your most obedient servant,

The honorable Speaker of the House of Delegates.

Fellow-Citizens of the House of Delegates,

TH: M. RANDOLPH.

WE meet under circumstances so propitious to public happiness, in all the most important points, that no new subject of general concern appears to call for the invitation towards it, of your early and particular attention. The intimate knowledge you bring along with you, of the public feelings, wants and wishes of your respective constituents, will enable you to undertake whatever new legislative arrangements you may find to be necessary, with fair hope of ultimate beneficial effect, and with-the certainty of an equal regard for all interests. The representative body has always felt proper sympathy with that part of the community which is, as yet, only virtually represented; and the fact in our history is highly honorable to us, that no instance has yet occurred of injury sustained, or of complaint made, on account of the right of suffrage being withheld from a part of our citizens. The revenue has been collected with a facility, and paid in with a promptitude, which denote a satisfied people and accurate agents. The system of finance and of accountability, in our state, reflects high honor upon your predecessors of various periods. It is a grand approach towards perfection, to have all the income from public funds devoted to the two great common objects of public instruction and territorial improvement, and the expenses of government regularly provided for within the year, by a levy upon the people, commensurate with the exigencies of the times; sometimes judiciously lowered by an enlightened economy, and again raised to the level of the occasion by a wise and energetic policy. No other system of finance can be honorable towards posterity, or entirely safe for the people themselves, who can never know the extent of the power lodged in the hands of the public functionaries, when they do not annually furnish from their own pockets, the means of upholding it.

The small reduction made last year in the land tax, along with other taxes, affords a valuable example. Nothing is more certain than the calculation, that if a land tax were to be perpetual, it would be better for the landholder to give up, at once, as much of the land as would redeem the annuity; for, he must lose so much in a sale, and by the payment of the annuity he is made, so far, a tenant instead of a proprietor. Land, too, is not a machine which can be kept in constant operation, whenever the interest and industry of the holder require it; a large part must, every year, be unproductive, and another part, as the quantity required to be kept in wood, is never more than auxiliary; which quality would exempt it from taxation if it were an ordinary machine. Land, for the most part, now, is an unproductive capital, held with the hope of better times; and may be consumed by the tax before they arrive.But the refinements of taxation practised in other countries, would be still more inappropriate to our political system. Enlightened republican statesmen will always take more pains to explain the necessity of an increase of taxes, and to shew the origin of that necessity, than to render the burthen less distinctly perceptible to the people. Over one part of the triple taxing power, to which our citizens are subject, they can never have other than a very inefficient control. But it may be worthy of reflection, whether the levying power of the county courts, being altogether illegitimate according to modern ideas of free government, since the justices are neither chosen by the people, nor responsible for their acts in a body, should not be regarded with more jealousy.

It is a melancholy truth, that in the way most governments are managed, as much is exacted from the father, during the growth of his children, as would be sufficient, if retained, and judiciously employed, to educate the sons,

and portion the daughters of the family, in a manner corresponding with their condition in life. To suppose that the necessity produced by taxation can excite to industry and frugality, more effectually than such a consideration, is an unpardonable libel upon human nature. The serious character of the subject, and the dignity of the occasion now offering itself, render it allowable to make use of it, for condoling with our injured fellow-citizens on the suppression, now so long continued, of our commerce with the British islands in the West Indies, and on the sudden exclusion of French vessels from our ports. Our Indian corn and lumber, the main productions of the eastern part of our state, are too bulky to bear transhipment, and a circuitous voyage, and of course they now no longer reach their best and most steady market. Our tobacco, now again, as before the independence of America, goes to the principal consumers through English hands, burthened with other port duties, and with a profit to foreign merchants, which are manifestly lost by the producers here, in addition to the slackness of demand always occasioned by obstructions of any kind. The reflections necessarily caused by suffering, cannot fail to suggest to us, that the colonial policy of Great Britain. may perhaps be deemed by that government no less essential to her political system, than the entire freedom of the press is known by our statesmen to be to ours. Upon it certainly depends the maintenance of our great American confederacy in the purity of true republicanism, and in its entire independence of all the world, except for commerce only which, it would seem, can no more be completely reciprocal than their civil institutions can resemble ours. If the independence of Great Britain is supported by her influence in Europe, more than by her absolute power; that influenced by the great prosperity of her maritime interest; and that again by her colonial system, we may expect permanent disappointment from the course now pursuing. The artificial dignity of kinghood is unquestionably considered very important by them; yet they have never once thought of putting an end to our ridicule of their pageantry by restricting any species of intercourse with us. Their king, and their islanders of the west, are left to console themselves as they can. The main interest, navigation, must, and will be supported.

:

It never has been thought by more than a very small number of statesmen among us, that there could, in our time, be an interest in the United States deserving to bear competition for a moment with that of its agriculture. Yet that is immolated, as far as we are concerned in it, for the benefit of a small shipping interest, of some of our sister states; which does not even need the sacrifice, now that a sea coast, long enough to girt the globe we inhabit, abounding with populous cities and valuable productions of every variety, is laid open to their enterprize. The owners of that shipping never cease to taunt us, in their Gazettes, with our deficiency of monied capital, and of navigating means; yet their vessels are sent here to carry our produce, detained for them by the operation of revenue laws, in every instance entirely, or almost empty, whereas foreign vessels come full, to purchase for themselves, and prepared to deal with that liberality, which is inseperable from direct transactions between producers and consumers; to whom all the circumstances of supply and demand, with all the infinite variety of tastes and of qualities of productions requisite to suit them, are necessarily better known than they can be to foreign speculators, who have no common interest, and no durable connection with either.

When the present rulers of France had been brought to consent, for the sake of their shipping interest, to forget the change of political opinions which had taken place in their country between 1784, when French ships first began to visit our waters, and 1789, when their revolution commenced, why should they have been roused to that remembrance and restored to the resolution of sacrificing their navigation to their fears, for a matter of mere etiquette which forbearance was most likely to adjust?

The commonwealth has undergone the humiliation of having endeavoured in vain to vindicate and assert her rights and her sovereignty at the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, and now endures the mortification, notwithstanding the great talents, learning and efforts of the counsel employed, of having altogether failed to procure a disavowal of the right, or the intention, to violate that sovereignty and those rights, by the procedure which was announced to the last legislature; and what has been consequent to it in the usual course.

The Supreme Court of the United States has asserted in the broadest terms the right of that court to exercise appellate jurisdiction in cases where a state is a party, and where it is brought before them by a writ of error, to reverse the sentence of one of its courts inflicting a penalty on some of its own citizens for a violation of its penal code. It has asserted the right, in cases where a state is a party, to enforce within that state, laws of congress framed for the district of Columbia within the limits of which congress has exclusive jurisdiction, by supervising and controuling the decisions of the state courts upon municipal regulations of their own intended to preserve the morals of their citizens. Although it admitted that under the provisions of the particular act of congress authorising a lottery for the benefit of the district of Columbia, the venders of the tickets were not protected from a liability to punishment for infractions of the state laws, prohibiting a sale of them in the respective states, it has intimated its opinion in a manner which admits of little doubt, that even in support of regulations framed by congress for the district of Columbia, it may dispense with or overreach the municipal laws of a state which are in conflict with them. The principles thus contended for by the Supreme Court are manifestly calculated to impair, most essentially, the sovereign rights retained by the states, and ultimately to change the character of the government from a constitution of limited and defined powers to one investing unlimited authority.

The Supreme Court of the United States has long attributed to Congress a discretion to use any means they may judge expedient, to carry a power specified in the constitution into effect. It arrogates to itself, always, the high authority to judge exclusively in the last resort how far the federal compact is violated, and to arraign before it, not only the decisions of the state courts, but the states themselves. As the states are parties to the compact, it is their duty to exercise a proper degree of vigilance and energy to prevent its violation. In a difference of sentiment as to the authority conferred by the Federal Constitution, it surely cannot be pretended to be an exclusive right of one of the parties to decide whether a power is conferred or not, and particularly not of the party who claims its exercise.

If principles plainly upheld by those opinions and decisions are successfully maintained, it is manifest that the amendment to the constitution intended to guard the sovereignty of the states has no longer any force, and the adoption of it has proved a vain measure. The definition of the powers granted is no longer of any use; the limitation to those powers, and the reservation of all remaining powers to the state governments which before possessed the whole, are no longer of any avail.

If congress can pass all laws which it may ever on any occasion deem necessary to carry powers imputed to its government into effect, it is evident that that government is one of unlimited power by construction, whatever may appear on the face of the constitution to the contrary. If it can go to the outer limits of the field of legislation presented to it by the states, it will inevitably soon occupy the whole field so fully, that no decision can be made in state court which may not be construed to involve some law of the United States, and be therefore reversible at t the will of the Federal Judiciary. The state courts will then be virtually annihilated; for, their proceedings will be subjects of jealousy, until they become useless ceremonies. The constitution of the United States is a durable monument of the wisdom and harmony of time past; its very imperfections constitute an impressive memorial of the necessity of good faith in the passing, and in future time. It is not a mystic writing, given in charge to the Federal Judiciary, as to a priesthood, to be enveloped in studied obscurity, consulted through mazes, and made to give such responses as may suit the peculiar views of political expediency of incumbents of any political sect, at any period. But to argue against the constitutionality of the jurisdiction asserted and the pretended conservative powers assumed, after the dignified and emphatic declaration made by the last legislature, is useless, and can produce no good consequence. The only legitimate remedy, whether sure and lasting time will shew, against the certain effect of this effervescence of juridical ambition, which if disavowed by the present enlightened congress may hereafter be tolerated, or encouraged, by some other, is unquestionably an amendment to the constitution, confining both the power claimed, and the jurisdiction asserted, within such well defined limits, as may make the state governments secure against the fatal consequences of a right existing in other tribunals to reverse the decisions of theirs, upon matters of their own internal policy; and in a tribunal, created by one party to the compact, to declare in detail what that compact intended.

Anticipations full of despair for the future welfare of the union must unavoidably accompany the harsh supposition that the alarming assumptions in question can have had their origin in wilful error, induced by motives of political expediency connected with views of government very different from those of the framers of the constitution. They must have had the same understanding of the different clauses of the instrument at that time, if not similar intentions when they assembled, or views in the discussion. All then gave a solemn pledge to support it, as it came from their hands. All declared it to be the best contrivance they could make to bring the whole power and influence of all the states to bear, in mass, upon foreign nations, in peace as well as in war, without diminishing their internal means of preserving tranquillity, of encouraging virtue and knowledge, and promoting prosperity to any of them. If all did not deprecate consolidation, as much as disunion, it was because a few had not the foresight to discover that a corrupt, magnificent, extravagant, impoverishing and enslaving government, must be the consequence of it. If it be said that the minority then has become the majority now, let it be put to the test, by another convention. The highly distinguished citizens who compose the supreme court at this time are far above the imputation of bad faith, ever poorly defended by any consideration of expediency, but they are all certainly too learned to have unintentional error attributed to them without painful doubt. The gloom of this prospect is not a little deepened by the reflection that the places of those Judges are very likely hereafter to be filled by the same men who have given their opinions as counsel, it is hoped merely professional, in support of such a violation of state rights.

It may be useful to consider whether the practice of assuming an unwarrantable latitude of construction, as to constitution and law, may not also have been indulged in our own state affairs. To have our feelings softened towards those officers of the general government who follow the same unpromising course, will be one pleasing effect of the enquiry. But that ought by no means to blind us to the consequences of suffering all the points in politicks and jurisprudence, once deliberately adjusted, and all the limits of rights, powers, and functions, once scrupulously determined, to remain perpetually liable to be unhinged, unsettled, and shifted, by a capricious ambition, or a grasping policy. The ultimate effect of that must be to perplex, weary, disgust, and irritate the people, who are, while tranquil, the only sure guardian of all rights as well as the only legitimate source of all power, and probably to substitute the force of mobs, directed by their leaders, who unavoidably soon become their masters, for the reign of settled law, upon the unassailed stability of which, all the dignity of man, and every prospect of human happiness must ever depend. That state which suffered most in the war of the revolution on both its frontiers, the ocean and the wilderness from civilized robbers of the sea, and savage man-hunters of the forest; which had the good fortune to witness, on its own territory, and to contribute most largely towards the most signal successes of the united arms; which first and most liberally reduced its original extent by grants to the confederacy, and relinquishments, to increase the number of its members, which was most prompt to take arms in support of the laws of the union when outraged in 1794, and most patient to sacrifice its youth in unhealthy service against the common enemy in 1814, may without arrogance take the lead in such a cause. The circumstance, in addition, of having hitherto led the way in all ameliorating proceedings; of having once before applied the legitimate remedy with so much energy and success, and of having ever disclaimed all other means of redress, will justify Virginia for making an endeavor, alone, to rouse the other states of the union to a proper consideration of the importance of the crisis.

The publication of a collection of all the laws which ever passed in Virginia now to be found, has at length. reached the period of the revolution, in the 8th volume. A view of our public economy, and the spirit of our legislation for two centuries may be obtained, when it is complete, by the perusal of a single work. Until it is complete,