ABSTRACT
The colonial assemblies in America assumed the investigatory power as a normal part of their business, and were sustained therein by the courts. Accounts of colonial investigations survive from most of the colonies, especially Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The investigatory power has been developed further within the American than within any other political system. In order to rate the investigatory power, it is important to understand the precise conditions under which that power achieves its full flexibility and amplitude. Congress has traditionally claimed that all three of these conditions—the power of compulsion, immunity, autonomy—hold for its investigatory power; and Congress has never formally acknowledged any limitation on any of the three. To submit the investigatory power to restrictions and interpretations issuing from the courts or from the executive means to deny the exclusively legislative character of this power, which is granted in the premise.
