BINNEY'S CASE. 153

that house; to the debates upon it and to the amendments it had
undergone; and to the language of the act itself, as evidence of
what was the then existing common law. But it is not said, nor
can it be inferred from their arguments, that the judges deemed it
allowable to introduce all such matter as evidence, by which the
true sense of that act itself was to be ascertained, in relation to any
case for which it had provided; on the contrary, one of the judges,
speaking to this point, after noticing, that it had been strongly
contended by one of the counsel, that from the amendments in the
committee of the house of commons, and from the change of the
title, that the Parliament meant to take 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.' (k) From
which it clearly appears to have been his understanding, that it was
improper to admit even the proceedings of either one of the
branches of the legislature itself, as evidence of the true construc-
tion of a statute. And upon a more recent occasion, when the con-
struction 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. (I)

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 distinct
legislative bodies, each one of which, composed of two or more
branches, is entirely independent of all the others. These legis-
lative bodies have thus manifested their concurrence and satisfaction
in the sense expressed by the language of this law, when taken by
itself, and without any other help than what may be derived 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 legislative 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 fey motives peculiar to itself, it would be wholly
unjust, and improper to collect the sense of this act of incorpora-

(k) Millar v. Taylor, 4 Burr. 23 32.—(I) Mackintosh v. Townsend, 16 Ves, 337.