In the second place, as to the Committee of
Selection, the question was, by the law and usage of Parliament, could
they delegate to a committee the power to make regulations punishable by
"Contempt," by placing the party in custody, whereas the House had not
the jurisdiction by common law to compel the attendance of members. He
took it, the House had no such common law power, because by the Sixth of
Henry VIII. it was enacted, that the members of that House should attend
the House. Now if the common law jurisdiction existed, this statute
would have been wholly unnecessary.
The Attorney-General, Sir William Follett, replied, that all the members
of the House had consented to the resolutions of the 12th of February,
thereby making them binding upon themselves; and that as Mr. O'Brien
might have objected then, but did not, he was of course bound by them;
and as to the Act of Union, he considered there was no force in the
argument drawn from it, because the third article of that Act had made
one Parliament of the two, enacting "that the said United Kingdom be
represented in one and the same Parliament, to be styled the Parliament
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
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