UNITED STATES v. BREWSTER ter of course by those who severed the Colonies from the Crown and founded our Nation." Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S., at 372. Despite his fear of "legislative excess," Tenney v. Brandhove, supra, at 375, Jefferson, when confronted with criticism of certain Congressmen by the Richmond, Virginia, grand jury, said: "[T]hat in order to give to the will of the people the influence it ought to have, and the information which may enable them to exercise it usefully, it was a part of the common law, adopted as the law of this land, that their representatives, in the discharge of their functions, should be free from the cognizance or coercion of the coordinate branches, Judiciary and Executive." 8 The Works of Thomas Jefferson 322 (Ford ed. 1904). Jefferson's point of view was shared by his contemporaries' and found judicial expression as early as 1808, in the Coffin opinion, supra. It was there stated: "In considering this article, it appears to me that the privilege secured by it is not so much the privilege of the house as an organized body, as of each individual member composing it, who is entitled to this privilege, even against the declared will of the house. For he does not hold this privilege at the pleasure of the house; but derives it from the will of the people, expressed in the constitution, which is paramount to the will of either or both branches * James Wilson, a member of the Convention committee responsible for the Clause, stated: "In order to enable and encourage a representative of the publick to discharge his publick trust with firmness and success, it is indispensably necessary, that he should enjoy the fullest liberty of speech, and that he should be protected from the resentment of every one, however powerful, to whom the exercise of that liberty may occasion offence." I The Works of James Wilson 421 (McCloskey ed. 1967). UNITED STATES v. BREWSTER of the legislature. In this respect the privilege here secured resembles other privileges attached to each member by another part of the constitution, by which he is exempted from arrests on mesne (or original) process, during his going to, returning from, or attending the general court. Of these privileges, thus secured to each member, he cannot be deprived, by a resolve of the house, or by an act of the legislature." 4 Mass., at 27. (Emphasis supplied.) In short, if the Framers contemplated judicial inquiry into legislative acts, even on the specific authorization of Congress, that intent is not reflected in the language of the Speech or Debate Clause or contemporary understanding of legislative privilege. History certainly shows that the Framers feared unbridled legislative power. That fact, however, yields no basis for an interpretation that in Article I, §§ 1 and 8, the Framers authorized Congress to ignore the prohibition against inquiry in “any other place" and enact a statute either of general application or specifically providing for a trial in the courts of a member who takes a bribe for conduct related to legislative acts.10 III I yield nothing to the Court in conviction that this reprehensible and outrageous conduct, if committed by 10 While it is true that Congress has made the acceptance of a bribe a crime ever since 1853, it should be noted that the earliest federal bribery statute, passed by Congress in 1790, applied only to judges who took bribes in exchange for an "opinion, judgment or decree." Act of April 30, 1790, 1 Stat. 112, 117. It also appears that the common law did not recognize the charge of bribe-taking by a legislator. Blackstone, for example, defined bribery as "when a judge, or other person concerned in the administration of justice, takes any undue reward to influence his behaviour in his office." 4 Blackstone's Commentaries 139. Coke also regarded bribery as a crime committed by judges. Coke, 3d Inst. 145. UNITED STATES v. BREWSTER the Senator, should not have gone unpunished. But whether a court or only the Senate might undertake the task is a constitutional issue of portentous significance which must of course be resolved uninfluenced by the magnitude of the perfidy alleged. It is no answer that Congress assigned the task to the judiciary in enacting 18 U. S. C. § 201. Our duty is to Nation and Constitution, not Congress. We are guilty of a grave disservice to both Nation and Constitution when we permit Congress to shirk its responsibility in favor of the courts. The Framers' judgment was that the American people could have a Congress of independence and integrity only if alleged misbehavior in the performance of legislative functions was accountable solely to a member's own House and never to the executive or judiciary. The passing years have amply justified the wisdom of that judgment. It is the Court's duty to enforce the letter of the Speech or Debate Clause in that spirit. We did so in deciding Johnson. In turning its back on that decision today, the Court arrogates to the judiciary an authority committed by the Constitution, in Senator Brewster's case, exclusively to the Senate of the United States. Yet the Court provides no principled justification, and I can think of none, for its denial that United States v. Johnson compels affirmance of the District Court. That decision is only six years old and bears the indelible imprint of the distinguished constitutional scholar who wrote the opinion for the Court. Johnson surely merited a longer life. MR. JUSTICE WHITE, with whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN join, dissenting. The question presented by this case is not whether bribery or other offensive conduct on the part of Members of Congress must or should go unpunished. No one suggests that the Speech or Debate Clause insulates Senators and Congressmen from accountability for their misdeeds. Indeed, the clause itself is but one of several constitutional provisions which makes clear that Congress has broad powers to try and punish its Members: "the Constitution expressly empowers each House to punish its own members for disorderly behavior. We see no reason to doubt that this punishment may in a proper case be imprisonment, and that it may be for refusal to obey some rule on that subject made by the House for the preservation of order. "So, also, the penalty which each House is authorized to inflict in order to compel the attendance of absent members may be imprisonment, and this may be for a violation of some order or standing rule on that subject. "Each House is by the Constitution made the judge of the election and qualification of its members. In deciding on these it has an undoubted right to examine witnesses and inspect papers, subject to the usual rights of witnesses in such cases; UNITED STATES v. BREWSTER and it may be that a witness would be subject to like punishment at the hands of the body engaged in trying a contested election, for refusing to testify, that he would if the case were pending before a court of judicature. "The House of Representatives has the sole right to impeach officers of the government, and the Senate to try them. Where the question of such impeachment is before either body acting in its appropriate sphere on that subject, we see no reason to doubt the right to compel the attendance of witnesses, and their answer to proper questions, in the same manner and by the use of the same means that courts of justice can in like cases." Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168, 189-190 (1881). The sole issue here is in what forum the accounting must take place whether the prosecution which the Government proposes is consistent with the command that "for any Speech or Debate in either House, they [Members of Congress] shall not be questioned in any other Place." U. S. Constitution, Art. I, § 6, cl. 2. The majority disposes of this issue by distinguishing between promise and performance. Even if a Senator or Congressman may not be prosecuted for a corrupt legislative act, the Speech or Debate Clause does not prohi prosecution for a corrupt promise to perform that t If Member of Congress promises to vote for or against a bill in return for money, casts his vote in accordance with the promise and accepts payment, the majority's view is that even though he may not be prosecuted for voting as he did, although the vote was corrupt, the executive may prosecute and the judiciary may try him for the corrupt agreement or for taking the money either under a narrowly drawn statute or one of general application. This distinction between a promise |