five in Brazil, and forty in France and Italy. In Europe appointed members of the Upper House are usually required to be selected from certain professional, learned, or noble classes. Among the States of the American Union the qualifications for membership in both Houses are the same, usually mature age and citizenship.
There is substantial agreement throughout the United States and Europe as to the rights and privileges of legislative members. These are the right of each House to judge of the elections and qualifications of its own members, freedom from arrest during the session, except for treason or other high crimes, or unless the member is caught in the act of committing a crime; and freedom of debate without responsibility to any power except the chamber for words spoken or votes cast. There is not yet unanimity of opinion on the question of whether members of the Legislature should receive compensation. In the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and France the practice exists of granting compensation to members of both Houses, and in Switerland, Belgium, and Prussia to members of the Lower House. In Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Spain members receive no compensation. In the American Commonwealths the practice is to grant a small salary or per diem allowance together with mileage (q.v.).
The tenure of legislative members varies greatly. In the upper chambers of the European legislatures it is generally for life or long periods of time, although in France it is nine years, and in Switzerland and Germany it depends upon the will of the local governments. As to the lower houses the tenures are usually for short periods of time, ranging from three years in Switzerland to seven in Great Britain. In the United States it is six years for the Upper House and two for the Lower; in Mexico it is four for the Upper House and two for the Lower; in Brazil it is nine for the Upper and three for the Lower. Frequent provision is made for a partial renewal of the upper houses. Among the individual States of the American Union the most common provision is a four-year tenure for the Senates and two years for the lower houses. In some States, however, annual elections of members of the Legislature are still held, although there is a decided tendency toward the adoption of the biennial method. Relative to the powers of the Legislature over its own assembling, opening, adjournment, prorogation, and dissolution, it may be stated as a general rule that in the American republics and in the commonwealths of the United States this right belongs to the legislatures themselves, subject to certain provisions in the constitutions relative to the times of meeting and the length of the session. In the European legislatures, on the other hand, the more common rule is that these are prerogatives of the head of the State. To this rule, however, there are several exceptions and modifications. So far as internal organization, discipline, and procedure are concerned, the general rule is that each house shall be left to its own judgment subject to a few limitations prescribed by the constitutions relative to publicity of procedure, the infliction of punishment on refractory members, and the organization of the chamber. There is a substantial agreement that a quorum for the transaction of business should be a majority of the legal number of members. In some States this is regulated by statute, and in others it is made a constitutional principle. This rule, however, is departed from in the ease of the British Parliament and the German Bundesrat, in both of which cases the presence of a comparatively small number of members is sufficient to transact business.
So far as the frequency of legislative sessions is concerned, it may be stated as a general rule that national legislatures assemble annually. This is required by the Constitutions of the United States and France, while the demands of a complex and increasing civilization make it practically necessary everywhere.
Consult: Bryce, American Commonwealth (New York, 1888); Burgess, Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law (Boston, 1896); Marquardsen, Handbuch des öffentlichen Rechts der Gegenwart (Freiburg, 1883-94); Demombynes, Constitutions européennes (2 vols., Paris, 1884); and Poore, Charters and Constitutions of the United States (2 vols., Washington, 1878).
See Legislation; Speaker; Ministry; Government; and articles on the various countries.
LEGITIM (Fr. légitime, from Lat. legitimus, lawful), or Bairn's Part. In Scotch law, the legal provision which a child is entitled to out of the movable or personal estate of the deceased father. In Scotland a father is not allowed wholly to disinherit his children. If a wife and children survive, the movable estate is divided into three equal parts, one of which is preserved to the children. If only children survive, and not the wife, then half the personal estate is legitim, the other half being called ‘dead's part,’ and being devisable by the father at his pleasure. Though a father may, in his lifetime, without any check from his children, squander his property, still he is not allowed on his deathbed to make gifts so as to lessen the fund which will supply legitim. The legitim is claimable by all the children who survive the father, but not by the issue of those children who have predeceased. It is immaterial what the age of the child may be, and whether married or not. Children claiming legitim must, however, give credit for any provision or advance made by the father out of his movable estate in his lifetime. All the children, though of different marriages, share equally in the legitim. The principle of the legitim does not exist at the common law, but it obtains in Louisiana and in all the modern States whose legal systems are derived from that of the civil law. See Inofficious Testament.
LEGITIMACY. In law, the status of a child who is born in wedlock, or who is rendered legitimate in law by the subsequent marriage of his parents. Any child born during wedlock is presumed to be legitimate, but this presumption may be rebutted by positive proof that the husband and wife had not cohabited for a time which would completely negative any possibility of the former being the father of the child. The old common-law rule was that the child was conclusively presumed to be legitimate unless the husband was ‘beyond the seas’ for over nine months previous to its birth, but that rule has been modified as above stated. In most jurisdictions a child born out of wedlock may be legitimatized by the subsequent marriage of its
