ARTICLE VIII

[Section 2, as amended by a vote of the people at the General Election, November 6, 1877.] SECTION 2. No money shall be paid out of the treasury, except in pursuance of an ap propriation by law. No appropriation shall be made for the payment of any clam against the State, except claims of the United States, and judgments, unless filed within six years after the claim accrued.

ARTICLE XI.

[Section 3, as amended by a vote of the people at the General Election, November 3, 1874.] SECTION 3. It shall be the duty of the Legislature, and they are hereby empowered, to provide for the organization of cities and incorporated villages, and to restrict their power of taxation, assessment, borrowi ig money, contracting debts, and loaning their credit, so as to prevent abuses in assessments and taxation, and in contracting by such municipal corporations. No county, city, town, village, school district, or other municipal corporation, shall be allowed to become indebted in any minner or for any purpose, to any amount, including existing indebtedness, in the aggregate exceeding five per centum on the value of the taxable property therein, to be ascertained by the last assessinent for state and county taxes, previous to the incurring of such indebtedness. Any county, city, town, village, school district, or other municipal corporation, incurring any indebtedness as aforesaid, shall, before or at the time of doing so, provide for the collection of a direct annual tax sufficient to pay the interest on said debt as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principal thereof within twenty years from the time of contracting the same.

ARTICLE XIII.

[Section 1, as amended by a vote of the people at the General Election, November 7, 1882.] SECTION 1. The political year for the State of Wisconsin shall commence on the first Monday in January in each year, and the general elections shall be holden on the Tuesday next succeeding the first Monday in November. The first general election for all state and county officers, except judicial officers, after the adoption of this amendment, shall be holden in the year A. D. 1884, and thereafter the general election shall be held biennially. All state, county or other officers elected at the general election in the year 1881, and whose term of office would otherwise expire on the first Monday of January in the year 1881, shall hold and continue in such office respectively, until the first Monday in January in the year 1885.

ARTICLE VII.

[Section 4, as amended by a vote of the people at an election April 2, 1889.] SECTION 4. The chief justice and associate justices of the supreme court shall be severally known as justices of said court with the same terms of office, respectively, as now provided. The supreme court shall consist of five justices (any three o whom shall be a quorum), to be elected as now provide. The justice baving been longest a continuous member of the court (or in case o two or more of such senior justices having served for the same length of time, then the one whose commission first expires), shall be ex-officio the chief justice.

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MANUAL OF PARLIAMENTARY PRACTICE.

NOTE-The rules and practices peculiar to the SENATE are printed between brackets, i Those of PARLIAMENT are not so distinguished.

IMPORTANCE OF RULES.

SECTION I.

IMPORTANCE OF ADHERING TO RULES.

Mr. ONSLOW, the ablest among the Speakers of the House of Commons, used tɑ ‚ây: "It was a maxim he had often heard when he was a young man, from old and eyerienced Members, that nothing tended more to throw power into the hands of the admistration, and those who acted with a majority of the House of Commons, than a negle t of, or departure from, the rules of proceeding; that these forms, as instituted by our ancestors, operated as a check and control on the actions of the majority, and that they were in many instances, a shelter and protection to the minority, against the attempts of power." So far the maxim is certainly true, and it is founded in good sense, that as it is always in the power of the majority, by their numbers, to stop any improper measures proposed on the part of their opponents, the only weapons by which the minority can defend themselves against similar attempts from those in power, are the forms and rules of proceeding which have been adopted as they were found necessary, from time to time, and are come the law of the House; by a strict adherence to which, the weaker party can only be, protected from those irregularities and abuses which these forms were intended to chek, and which the wantonness of power is but too often apt to suggest to large and successful majorities. 2 Hats., 171, 172.

And whether these forms be in all cases the most rational or not, is really not of so great importance. It is much more material that there should be a rule to go by, than what that rule is; that there may be a uniformity of proceeding in business, not subject to the caprice of the Speaker, or captiousness of the Members. It is very material that order, decency and regularity be preserved in a dignified public body. 2 Hats., 149.

SECTION II.

LEGISLATIVE.

[All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives — Constitution of the United States, Art. 1, Sec. 1.]

[The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. Constitution of the United States, Art. 1, Sec. 6.]

[For the powers of Congress, see the following Articles and Sections of the Constitution of the United States. I, 4, 7, 8, 9. II, 1, 2. III, 3. IV, 1, 3, 5, and all the amendments.]

SECTION III.

PRIVILEGE.

The privileges of Members of Parliament, from small and obscure beginnings, have been advancing for centuries with a firm and never yielding pace. Claims seem to have been brought forward from time to time, and repeated, till some example of their admission enabled them to build law on that example. We can only, therefore, state the points of progression at which they now are. It is now acknowledged, 1st. That they are at all times exempted from question elsewhere for anything said in their own House; that during the time of privilege, 2d. Neither a Member himself, his wife, nor his servants (familaries

*Order of House of Commons, 1663, July 16.