[Sidenote:  Privileges of members.] Senators and representatives receive a salary fixed by law, and as they are federal functionaries they are paid from the federal treasury.  In all cases, except treason or felony or breach of the peace, they are privileged from arrest during their attendance in Congress, as also while on their way to it and while returning home; “and for any speech or debate in either house they shall not be questioned in any other place.”  These provisions are reminiscences of the evil days when the king strove to interfere, by fair means or foul, with free speech in parliament; and they are important enough to be incorporated in the supreme law of the land.  No person can at the same time hold any civil office under the United States government and be a member of either house of Congress.

[Sidenote:  The Speaker.] The vice-president is the presiding officer of the Senate, with power to vote only in case of a tie.  The House of Representatives elects its presiding officer, who is called the Speaker.  In the early history of the House of Commons, its presiding officer was naturally enough its spokesman.  He could speak for it in addressing the crown.  Henry of Keighley thus addressed the crown in 1301, and there were other instances during that century, until in 1376 the title of Speaker was definitely given to Sir Thomas Hungerford, and from that date the list is unbroken.  The title was given to the presiding officers of the American colonial assemblies, and thence it passed on to the state and federal legislatures.  The Speaker presides over the debates, puts the question, and decides points of order.  He also appoints the committees of the House of Representatives, and as the initiatory work in our legislation is now so largely done by the committees, this makes him the most powerful officer of the government except the President.

[Sidenote:  Impeachment in England] The provisions for impeachment of public officers are copied from the custom in England.  Since the fourteenth century the House of Commons has occasionally exercised the power of impeaching the king’s ministers and other high public officers, and although the power was not used during the sixteenth century it was afterward revived and conclusively established.  In 1701 it was enacted that the royal pardon could not be pleaded against an impeachment, and this act finally secured the responsibility of the king’s ministers to Parliament.  An impeachment is a kind of accusation or indictment brought against a public officer by the House of Commons.  The court in which the case is tried is the House of Lords, and the ordinary rules of judicial procedure are followed.  The regular president of the House of Lords is the Lord Chancellor, who is the highest judicial officer in the kingdom.  A simple majority vote secures conviction, and then it is left for the House of Commons to say whether judgment shall be pronounced or not.