Contempt powers started with English Common Law where disobedience of writ under the King's seal was treated as contempt. Under the 1789 Act, the federal courts were given those powers that the English Courts had under common law. Congress did not define what acts constituted contempts, but left this, as well as the amount of punishment, to the judicial discretion of the courts. Prior to 1831, the judges in several cases had punished criticisms of themselves or their decisions published in the press, as contempts of their authority, and to such an extent had this action been considered a usurpation by the public that impeachments had been instituted on account of such acts against several of the judges. The power of a federal court to imprison a recalcitrant witness for contempt in an effort to make the witness testify is an inherent power which was possessed from the beginning by the federal courts in exercise of their equity jurisdiction, which parallels that exercised by the English Court of Chancery at the time the Constitution was formed .
Contempt can be civil or criminal or both.
Civil contempt is a sanction to enforce compliance with an order of the court to compensate for losses or damages sustained by reason of noncompliance and may be imposed for prohibited acts irrespective of intent. Contempt is civil when it is remedial and serves only the purposes of the complainant . The purpose of the punishment, rather than the character of the act punished, determines whether contempt is civil or criminal. Criminal and civil proceedings for contempt are not mutually exclusive and the court can institute separate and independent proceedings for criminal contempt on a new citation. If you take that position, you will likely waive your Constitutional Rights and you may be arrested and incarcerated until such time as you agree to testify.