Duty to keep a Journal

Duty of the Houses to keep a Journal

The object of the clause requiring the keeping of a Journal is “to insure publicity to the proceedings of the legislature, and a correspondent responsibility of the members to their respective constituents.” 1 When the Journal of either House is put in evidence for the purpose of determining whether the yeas and nays were ordered, and what the vote was on any particular question, the Journal must be presumed to show the truth, and a statement therein that a quorum was present, though not disclosed by the yeas and nays, is final.2 But when an enrolled bill, which has been signed by the Speaker of the House and by the President of the Senate, in open session receives the approval of the President and is deposited in the Department of State, its authentication as a bill that has passed Congress is complete and unimpeachable, and it is not competent to show from the Journals of either House that an act so authenticated, approved, and deposited, in fact omitted one section actually passed by both Houses of Congress.3

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References

This text about Duty to keep a Journal is based on “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation”, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

[Footnote 1] 2 J. STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES § 840 (1833), quoted with approval in Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649, 670 (1892).

[Footnote 2] United States v. Ballin, 144 U.S. 1, 4 (1892).

[Footnote 3] Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892); Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., 220 U.S. 107, 143 (1911). See the dispute in the Court with regard to the application of Field in an origination clause dispute. United States v. Munoz-Flores, 495 U.S. 385, 391 n.4 (1990), and id. at 408 (Justice Scalia concurring in the judgment). A parallel rule holds in the case of a duly authenticated official notice to the Secretary of State that a state legislature has ratified a proposed amendment to the Constitution. Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130, 137 (1922); see also Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433 (1939).

Tables of Contents

• Duty to keep a Journal and other Topics in the Contents – Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution
• U.S. Constitutional Law Category
• List of amendments to the U.S. Constitution
• Duty to keep a Journal and other Topics in the Constitution Contents
• Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution (Table of Contents)
• Clauses of the Constitution (Table of Contents)