case of expulsion, as if it had been declared by an express statute,"That a member, expelled by a resolution of the house of commons, shall be deemed incapable of being re-elected." Whatever doubt then there might have been of the law, before Mr. Walpole's case, with respect to the full operation of a vote of expulsion, there can be none now. The decision of the House, upon this case is strictly in point to prove, that expulsion creates absolute incapacity in law of being re-elected.
But incapacity in law, in this instance, must have the same operation and effect with incapacity in law in every other instance. Now, incapacity of being re-elected implies in its very terms, that any votes given to the incapable person, at a subsequent election, are null and void. This is its necessary operation, or it has no operation at all: It is vox et praeterea nihil. We can no more be called upon to prove this proposition, than we can to prove that a dead man is not alive; or, that twice two are four. When the terms are understood, the proposition is self-evident.
