144 BINNEY'S CASE.—2 BLAND.

away, or to declare there was no property at the common law,
says, "that the sense and meaning of an Act of Parliament must
be collected from what it says when passed into a law, and not
from the history of changes it underwent in the House where it
took its rise. That history is not known to the other House, or
to the sovereign." Millar v. Taylor, 4 Burr. 23, 32. From which
it clearly appears to have been his understanding, that it was im-
proper to admit even the proceedings of either one of the branches
of the Legislature itself, as evidence of the true construction of
a statute. And upon a more recent occasion, when the construc-
tion of a statute was drawn in question, the Court looked into the
proceedings of Parliament in relation to the Act, but declaring
that it laid no stress upon them, grounded its decision upon pre-
viously adjudged cases. Mackintosh v. Townsend, 16 Ves. 337.

The Act, under which The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Com-
pany has become a body politic, originated with the Legislature
of Virginia, has been adopted and re-enacted by three other dis-
tinct legislative bodies, each one of which, composed of two or
more branches, is entirely independent of all the others. These
legislative bodies have thus manifested their concurrence and sat-
isfaction in the sense expressed by the language of this law, when
taken by itself and without any other help than what may be de
rived from the nature of the subject of what it speaks. Surely
then, if it would be at all unsafe to collect the sense of a law from
the history of the changes it underwent in one branch of a legis-
lative body; because, that history might not be known to the other;
or because, the other might have had a different understanding of
the matter, or been influenced by motives peculiar to itself, it
would be wholly unjust, and improper to collect the sense of this
Act of incorporation *from the proceedings, or debates of
154 any one of the four independent legislative bodies, by whom
it has been adopted. And, if the grave and solemn movements of
the several legislative bodies themselves, by whom it was passed,
cannot be considered as altogether safe guides in ascertaining, its
meaning, most assuredly the resolutions of the various assemblages
of people, who have met at sundry times to consult about "this
great enterprise," with all the unofficial sayings and doings in re-
lation to it, which have been so much pressed upon the attention of
the Court, must be utterly rejected, as absolutely unworthy of any
the slightest respect or attention whatever.

It would be of dangerous consequence to admit parol proof of an
intention in the law-makers, different from that manifested by the
words of the law itself; as to shew, that a duty which the Act of
Assembly called a port duty, was intended to be a fort duty, (p)

(p) By the King in Council on rejecting Lord Baltimore's claim of certain
Port Duties; Bacon's Law of Maryland, 1692, ch. 17, note.