Note 3 — PROFESSIONAL ETHICS.

See Austin's case, 5 Rawle, 203. "An attorney at law," says C. J. Gibson, "is an officer of the court. The terms of the oath, exacted of him at his admission to the bar, prove him to be so;" "you shall behave yourself in your office of attorney," &c. Again: it is declared in the Constitution, Article 1st, sec. 18 (Art. 1, sec. 19, of the amended Constitution of 1838), that "no member of Congress, or other person holding any office (except attorney at law, and in the militia), shall be a member of either House," &c., which is a direct constitutional recognition. Prior to the Act of 14th April, 1834, which expressly required from them an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, attorneys at law were invariably held to be within the provisions of Art. 6, sect. 3, of the Constitution of the United States, and of Art. 8, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, requiring all officers, executive and judicial, to take the oath to support those constitutions respectively. In Wood's case (1 Hopkins, 6), solicitors in chancery were held to be officers, within the meaning of a similar clause in the Constitution of New York. "The admission of an attorney, solicitor, or counsellor," says the opinion in that case, "is a general appointment to conduct causes before the courts: this station, thus conferred by public authority, has its peculiar powers, privileges, and duties, and thus becomes an office in the administration of justice." Leigh's case (1 Munford, 468), in which it was held, that attorneys are not officers, within the meaning of the statute of Virginia, requiring all persons holding any office, or place, under the commonwealth, to take an oath against duelling, does not perhaps conflict with this view. The case of Byrne's Admr's v. Stewart's Admr's (3 Desaus. 478), may, however, be found upon examination somewhat at variance—not the decision itself, but the views expressed by Chancellor Watres in his opinion. The case simply decided what would seem unquestionable, that the legislature had a right to prohibit any public officer, judicial or otherwise, from practising as an attorney or solicitor. The Chancellor said, "He (a solicitor) can he considered in no other light than that of a private agent for the citizens of the country, who may employ him to do their legal business in the courts; and although the law requires of him certain qualifications, and he receives a license from the judges, yet his office is no more a public one, than would be any other profession or trade, which the legislature might choose to subject to similar regulations, and which is the practice in many other countries. It cannot be doubted, that a man's trade or profession is his property; and if a law should be passed avowedly for the purpose of restraining any member of this bar, who was not a public officer, from exercising his profession, I should declare such law void." This is to assume high ground; but the idea that a man's profession or trade cannot be constitutionally interfered with by legislative enactments, seems scarcely tenable, and especially, so far as the profession of the law is concerned, in view of the absolute power with which every court is clothed, both as to the admission of their attorneys, and forejudging or striking them from the roll. Act of 14th April, 1834, s. 73 (Pamphlet Laws, 354). Courts of record and of general jurisdiction, are vested with exclusive power to regulate the conduct of their own officers, and in this respect their decisions are put on the same footing with that numerous class of cases, which is wisely confided to the legal discretion and judgment of the court, having jurisdiction over the subject-matter. Commonwealth v. The Judges, 5 Watts & Serg. 272; Ex parte Burr, 9 Wheat. 531; Ex parte Brown, 1 Howard (Miss.) Rep. 306; Perry v. State, 3 Iowa, 550; In the matter of Wills, 1 Mann, 392. "The power is one which ought to be exercised with great caution, but which is, we think, incidental to all courts, and necessary for the preservation of decorum and for the respectability of the profession." Marshall C. J. 9 Wheat. 531.