rtain act. It is therefore under the
control of no other power. No provision of the Constitution of New
Jersey, directing the mode in which a senator shall be elected, or the
course that shall be taken, or the rules of the proceeding, would bind
in any way the Legislature which is to perform the act. Nor would any
law of a previous Legislature have binding force. The existing
Legislature is independent of every thing except the Constitution of the
United States; but while it is thus independent and may disregard those
provisions, being the mere agent of the Federal Constitution, still it
must necessarily act as a Legislature in the performance of that duty.
There must be a _legislative_ act. . . . Whatever is done in relation
to the election of a senator, must be done as a consequence of
legislative action, otherwise it is no election by the Legislature.
They vote to form a convention for the purpose of choosing a senator,
and when they meet in convention that choice may be made. If there is
legislative action previously that is sufficient. The convention can
choose a senator because there has been legislative action which
authorizes them to choose a senator in that form. The Legislature,
when it votes to go into a convention of the two branches, may provide
the mode of election. If it desires to change the ordinary and
received law on the subject it may provide how the election shall be
made. It may say that a plurality shall elect if it pleases. It may
make any provision that it pleases, but it must be done by the
Legislature. It must be the legislative body which gives the power
that is to settle the mode of action. Now what are the facts in this
case? There was no provision whatever made by the Legislature of the
State of New Jersey as to the mode in which the senator should be
chosen. The legislative action which authorized the convention was
perfectly silent upon that subject. What then had the Legislature the
right to conclude? Was it not this, and this only?--that when it
authorized a body other than itself, though constituted of the same
members, a convention to choose a senator, that body must proceed in
the choice of a senator according to the universally received
Parliamentary and common law upon the subject of elections. But this
convention in New Jersey, without any legislative act, without any
such authority conferred upon it, without any thing done on the subject
by the Legislature which