Page:John P. Branch Historical Papers - Volume 2.djvu/323

applying to all legislatures that the powers delegated to them cannot be transferred to others. The confidence reposed in them is entirely personal. If there can be such a transference of power the congress might delegate it to a committee chosen by them, and that committee might again devolve it upon the member they have elected, as their chairman. Is the supreme court prepared to say that in such a case an act prepared and enacted by that chairman is a statute of the United States without the ratification of congress? I presume not. And yet such an act has claims to favor which the act before us has not. This committee and this chairman have all been elected as members of congress, by the people and the committee has been appointed by the house of representatives and their chairman appointed by them. But the corporate body of the city of Washington have not been elected into congress by the people of the United States, nor has congress elected or appointed the members of that body. They have been so appointed only by the people of the city and that for inferior and local purposes only. To call their act, then, a statute of the United States is to bind the whole people of the United States by the acts of a corporation elected by one city only. They were not as I have said, even appointed by congress. They were previously appointed by the district, and congress has only devolved the duty on them. To say therefore that this act is a statute of the United States, is more than saying that the aforementioned act of the committee or its chairman would be so. That committee holds its authority more directly from Congress and from the people than the corporation does, and is a part at least of those to whom the authority in question has been delegated. On this plain point I almost disdain to refer to authorities. I