For the powers of Congress, see the following Articles and Sections of the Constitution of the United States:--Art. I., Sec. 4, 7, 8, 9.--Art. II., Sect. 1, 2.--Art. III., Sec. 3.--Art. IV., Sec. 1, 3, 5.--And all the Amendments.$ SECTION III. PRIVILEGE. The privileges of the 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 point 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,[2] or his servants, [_familiares sui_] for any matter of their own, may be[3] arrested on mesne process, in any civil suit: 3d. Nor be detained under execution, though levied before the time of privilege: 4th. Nor impleaded, cited or subpœnaed, in any court: 5th. Nor summoned as a witness or juror: 6th. Nor may their lands or goods be distrained: 7th. Nor their persons assaulted, or characters traduced. And the period of time, covered by privilege, before and after the session, with the practice of short prorogations under the connivance of the Crown, amounts in fact to a perpetual protection against the course of justice. In one instance, indeed, it has been relaxed by 10 _G._ 3, c. 50, which permits judiciary proceedings to go on against them. That these privileges must be continually progressive, seems to result from their rejecting all definition of them; the doctrine being, that "their dignity and independence are preserved by keeping their privileges indefinite;" and that "the maxims upon which they proceed, together with the method of proceeding, rest entirely in their own breast, and are not defined and ascertained by any particular stated laws."--1 _Blackstone_, 163, 164.