them in the same way. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1638-39, declared: "The said deputyes shall haue power to fyne any that shall be disorderly at their meetings, or for not coming in due tyme or place according to appoyntment." In the Fundamental Order for the government of the New Haven Colony, agreed to at a General Court October 27, 1643, appears: "If any of the said magistrates or Deputyes shall either be absent att the first sitting of the said Generall Court, (unless some providence of God hinder, which the said Court shall judge of,) or depart, or absent themselves disorderly before the Court be finished he or they shall each of them pay twenty shillings fine, with due considerations of further aggravations if there shall be cause." In Rhode Island in 1672 the fine for absence from the Assembly was made twenty shillings, or if a quorum was not present, double that amount.1

At the first meeting of the first legislative body in New Jersey, 1668, among the provisions made in the four days' session, was one to the effect that for the absence of any Deputy, he should be liable to pay a fine of forty shillings, as a fine to the county, unless the Assembly should see cause to remit the same.2

It was particularly important that there should be as many present as possible on the first day of a session, for work could not proceed until a quorum presented itself, and the more who took part in electing the Speaker, the less likelihood of friction afterward. So in Virginia it was enacted in 1659-60 that the Burgess who failed to present himself on the day appointed should be fined 300 pounds of tobacco for every absence of twenty-four hours, unless offering acceptable excuse. It was customary for the letters of explanation to be read and approved or rejected. Sometimes the explanation given was regarded as aggravating the offense. Like precaution appears in North Carolina, the revision of the laws made in 1715 directing that if a Representative-elect did not make his appearance by a time specified in the summons, he should be fined twenty shillings for each day he delayed.

After he had once presented himself, the Virginia Burgess, by the Orders adopted at the opening of the session of 1658-59, was forbidden absence "without leave first obtained (unless prevented by sickness) when any matter shall be debated of." 2 Mulford, Hist. of N. J., 147.

1 S. G. Arnold, Hist. of R.I., 1, 365.

P. A. Bruce, Institutional Hist. of Va., 11, 464.

Notice that this seems to have condoned absence when debate was not in progress, but although the language is ambiguous, presumably voting also was provided for by another rule"Any member of this House, for any time of his absence upon call of the clerk, shall forfeit twenty pounds of tobacco, to be disposed of by the major part of this House, upon every Saturday in the afternoon, lawful impediments excepted." A generation afterward the penalty for absence Mondays was made a hogshead of tobacco, to discourage members from leaving town over Sunday.

The original States put nothing in their Constitutions about the matter. Kentucky was the first to use in the fundamental law phraseology that might be construed as contemplating deduction for absence. It said members should get "six shillings a day during their attendance on, going to and returning from the legislature," but one might safely conjecture that the word "during" was not construed too harshly. Kentucky still says "during," but Ohio, copying it in 1802, dropped it from the Constitution in 1851 when compensation was directed to be fixed by law. Ohio did not undertake to pay the legislator for the days spent in coming and going, but Louisiana did and kept it up until 1879, when the phrase was cut down to "during their attendance." Now in Ohio by statute if on a call of either House the members present refuse to excuse an absentee, he shall not be entitled to compensation during his absence.

Alabama put into her Constitution of 1819 and has kept there this provision: "It shall be the duty of the General Assembly [now Legislature] to regulate, by law, the cases in which deductions shall be made from the salaries of public officers, for neglect of duty in their official capacities, and the amount of such deduction." Wisconsin appears to have been the pioneer in definitely restricting payment to the time actually given, saying in its first Constitution (1848) that members should receive pay "for each day's attendance during the session," and such was the provision until in 1881 a salary was substituted. Michigan liked the idea and copied it in 1850, with the addition of compensation "when absent on account of sickness," maintaining the practice until a salary was substituted. Kansas in 1859 took the Wisconsin wording. Maryland in 1864 preferred the Michigan modification with changed phraseology, and added in

1867 "or by leave of the House of which he is a member." Nebraska in 1866 said the payment should be "for each day's attendance," and that has since been said by South Dakota, Washington, and New Mexico. Nebraska, however, in 1886 changed it to "during the sitting." Tennessee in 1870 forbade payment to a member for any day when absent from his seat in the Legislature, unless physically unable to attend. Rhode Island said in 1900 payment should be "for each day of actual attendance."

Massachusetts at the first General Court after the adoption of her Constitution, directed that members be paid "for each day they shall attend." Later statutes changed this to payment "for each and every day's attendance," and such was the stipulation until in 1858 payment by the session was substituted for the per diem practice. Then it was directed that three dollars a day be deducted for each day of absence, a provision repealed in 1865. It is to be doubted if the law was ever efficacious. At any rate Boutwell says of the General Court of 1842: "The attendance of members was never enforced, and it was quite irregular. A full House consisted of about 350 members, but 60 was a quorum. It was common for merchants and lawyers to call at the House, look at the orders of the day, and then go to business. In an exigency they were sent for and brought in to vote." 1

A unique provision was that of Massachusetts enacted in 1826 and standing as long as members were paid by the day, to the effect that the per diem of any member taken sick while going to, returning from, or attending the General Court, and who could not be removed to his home, should continue during his disability, though not beyond the first session of the next General Court a provision that we may surmise was due to sympathy for some one unlucky member. Georgia provides by statute that an absent member shall get no pay unless the absence is due to sickness of himself or in his family, or unless he has express leave of the House. Possibly other States have statutory provisions on the subject.

A few eccentricities appear. Indiana in 1851 decided that if either House failed to organize itself within five days after a quorum presented itself, its members should get no pay until organization should be effected. Oregon copied this, and so 1 Sixty Years in Public Affairs, 1, 71.

did Idaho, making the time four instead of five days. From 1860 until a salary was provided, Michigan allowed members from the Upper Peninsula three dollars a day more than the rest. California does not pay members for a recess of more than three days, but now that it pays a lump sum for regular sessions, this would presumably affect only special sessions. The Continental Congress had the rule: "No member shall leave Congress without permission of Congress or his constituents." Palpably there was difficulty in determining when a member had the permission of his constituents, unless they were supposed to be the Legislatures. More sensible was the form the rule took in the first Federal Congress, "that no member absent himself from the service of the House, unless he have leave or be sick and unable to attend." A simpler form now prevails: "Every member shall be present within the hall of the House during its sittings, unless excused or necessarily prevented." For the upper branch Jefferson's Manual prescribed: "No member shall absent himself from the service of the Senate without leave of the Senate first obtained." Such is still the Senate rule, save for the omission of the last five words.

When the Federal Congress first came together, a remarkable spasm of virtue overcame the impulses of human nature. Fisher Ames wrote to George Richards Minot, July 8, 1789: "There is a most punctual attendance of the members at the hour of meeting. Three or four have had leave of absence, but every other member actually attends daily, till the hour of adjourning." Nothing indicates that such a phenomenal state of affairs lasted after the novelty wore off. Half a century later John Fairfield could write to his wife: "To-day, at one time, we were without a quorum, many of the members having gone off to the race-course, where a purse of $20,000 was to be run for. At three o'clock we adjourned on account of the absence of members." This he thought "disgraceful to the last degree," and he declared it "a foul stain upon the character of an American Congress." 2 But he did not object to the sport itself, for three days later he wrote that after the House had adjourned, he too "joined in the dissipation."

Benton recalled that in the Journals of the two Houses, for the first thirty years of the Government, there was in the index a regular head for "absent without leave," but that it had disap1 Works of Fisher Ames, 1, 62. 2 Letters of John Fairfield, 226.

peared. He recollected "no instance of leave asked since the last of the early members - the Macons, Randolphs, Rufus Kings, Samuel Smiths, and John Taylors of Caroline - disappeared from the halls of Congress." At the time of the 47th Congress the rule requiring a Senator to ask leave of absence had so long been disregarded that when a Senator asked for such leave a question was raised as to the necessity of his so doing, and the Vice-President stated that, though the rule was perfectly explicit, it had not been the practice of the Senate to enforce it.

In the House, some members still go through what is usually the idle form of asking leave of absence for themselves or others. Customarily it is granted without opposition, but there have been instances of denial. In 1816 John Sargeant was refused leave, his intention being to depart for Europe. It was urged in the debate that a member's absence was a question between him and his constituents, but on the other hand it was replied that the House should not by vote sanction a relinquishment of public duties.

Publicity is one of the methods used for inciting attendance. In 1864 the Senate, by a vote of 20 to 13, directed the Reporter in making up the proceedings for the "Congressional Globe" to insert a separate list of the names of the absentees in each call for the Ayes and Noes. Eight and ten years later attempts to rescind this were without avail. The House non-voters also get their names published. Furthermore, when a Committee of the Whole finds itself without a quorum it rises and reports to the House the names of the absentees, which are to be entered on the Journal.

The colonial practice or pretense—we cannot now in most cases tell which it was of deducting from a member's salary for absence, naturally suggested itself to Congress for imitation. The Senate first tried it in 1816, discarded it in 1817, and tried it again in 1818, but the exceptions, including sickness, providential causes, and necessary business, were loopholes as wide as a barn-door, and the rule was useless. About Van Buren's time, some attempts seem to have been made to enforce it. Their evident futility may have led to the belief that only a statute could meet the difficulty. To that end Section 40 of the Act of August 18, 1856, authorized the Sergeant-at-Arms to deduct a day's salary for each day of unexcused absence. 1 Thirty Years' View, 1, 178.