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Xm6.] OF T$E HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 1329
the effect of Art. 37, in respect of Courts of law. The his-
tory of the Act of 1844, and the evils it was intended to
remedy strongly support this view.
3rd. That if Sec. 62 be construed as forbidding the House
from according to these memorialists the relief they have
prayed; it is in direct contravention to Art. 3, Sec. 19, of
the Constitution of this State, which makes each House
judge of the qualifications and elections of its members, with
power to determine the rules of its own proceedings, and to
Sec. 24, of the same Art., which enables the House of Dele-
gates to inquire on the oath of witnesses into all complaints,
and to send for persons whom they may judge necessary in
the course of their inquiries, and if valid when orginally en-
acted in 1844, it has been since thrice repealed by the succes-
sive adoption of Article 3, Sections 12 and 28, of the Consti-
tution of 1851, Sections 18 and 23 of the same Article in the ,
Constitution of 1864, and the Sections above quoted of our
present Constitution.
That the Constitution has conferred upon the House of
Delegates the power to inquire into these cases in the man-
ner suggested by the memorials, cannot be doubted. Can this
power be taken away by the Legislature? The House of Dele-
gates is not the Legislature, but only a part of the Legislature.
The Legislature can no more deprive the House of Dele-
gates of one of its Constitutional powers than it can deprive
the Governor of one of his Constitutional powers, or fix a
prescribed form for the exercise of such power, when the
Constitution has left him free. Nor does the fact that the
House of Delegates has participated in the enactment of a
law which infringes upon one of its Constitutional powers
reader such law valid, any more than would the participa-
tion of the Governor, by affixing his signature render valid
as against him, (and still less as against his successor) an Act
of Assembly which infringes upon the Constitutional power
of the Executive. Suppose the Legislature should undertake
to provide, that no pardon should be granted, except upon
evidence taken before a Justice of the Peace, would such a
law be valid?
But this precise question, as to the powers and duties of
this House, independent of any Act of Assembly, to examine
into, and decide upon the election, and qualifications of
its members, has been considered and settled at the Session
of 1864.
See Document "N" House of Delegates, 1864.
Now, it must be remembered as appears from the record,
that this brief of the memorialists was filed at the commit-
tee's request, communicated to the contestants on January
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