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1328 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Mar. 29,
January following, this Committee heard contestants' coun-
sel on this point, and decided adversely to them, on the
ground that the House had already settled by its refusal to
adopt the order of the 18th of January, that the Committee
should not go to Baltimore.
The great advantage accruing to the respondents from this
mode of argument is manifest, but whether the House and
its constituents will be satisfied with its fairness, or the jus-
tice of the course adopted thereunder remains to be seen.
That the Constitution both confers the power, and imposes
the duty upon the House to examine into, and decide upon
the qualifications and election of its members, and that this
power and duty is entirely exclusive and independent of,
and superior to any Act of Assembly, and can be properly
exercised whether or not any proceedinds have been taken un-
der Article 35, of the Code of Public General Laws, scarcely
admits of argument.
Inasmuch, however, as the majority of the Committee de-
cided that the Article 35, just quoted, was the exclsive law
of this case, and thereby shut out the most important evi-
dence, it may be well to embody here as a part of this report
an extract the brief of the memorialists filed on the occasion
above referred to, viz: the 26th day of January last, and
which it is submitted, is conclusive of the question both on
principle and authority. Whatever objections may be urged
to the possession by the Committee of such powers must be
founded on Art. 35, Secs. 55 to 65, inclusive, of the Code of
Public General Laws. As to these Sections it is submitted :
1st. That the construction most unfavorable to the memo-
raliets would prohibit only the taking by the Committee of
the testimony of witnesses; for Secs. 63, 64 and 65, which
admit in evidence properly certified copies of public docu-
ments, and provide for sending the ballots to the Speaker,
are premissive only, and cannot possibly bo held to forbid the
House or its Committee from inspecting the original docu-
ments, or the ballots in their place of legal deposit. These
sources of information are as open to the Committee as they
were before the Act of 1844, ch. 284, became law ; and Art.
20 of the Bill of Rights is as applicable to a case of contested
elections as to any other.
2nd. That consideration of the language of Sec. 62, and
comparison with that of Secs. 57, 60 and 61, shows that
examinations is used therein as the equivalent of depositions,
and that the true effect of Sec. 62, is, therefore, not to ex-
clude from the Committee the testimony of witnesses taken
viva voce before that Committee, but to admit their deposi-
tions taken in the manner prescribed by law, in analogy to
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