Committees. That A take the chair.. To agree to the whole or any part of report... That the House do now resolve into committee.. Speaker. That he now leave the chair, after order to go into com mittee..... That he issue warrant for a new writ.... Member. That none be absent without leave. Ayes. 259. Noes. 291. Witness. That he be further examined.. Previous question Blanks. That they be filled with the largest sum. Amendments. That words stand part of..... Messenger be received..... Lords. That their amendment be read a second time.. Orders of day to be now read, if before 2 o'clock If after 2 o'clock...... Adjournment. Till the next sitting day, if before 4 o'clock.. If after 4 o'clock... Over a sitting day, (unless a previous resolution) Over the 30th of January For sitting on Sunday, or any other day not being a sitting day... Ayes. 344. Ayes. Noes. Ayes. Noes. Ayes. Noes. Ayes. Noes. Ayes. The one party being gone forth, the Speaker names two tellers from the affirmative and two from the negative side, who first count those sitting in the House and report the number to the Speaker. Then they place themselves within the door, two on each side, and count those who went forth as they come in, and report the number to the Speaker. Mem. in Hakew., 26. A mistake in the report of the tellers may be rectified after the report made. 2 Hats., 145, note. [But in both houses of Congress all these intricacies are avoided. The ayes first rise, and are counted standing in their places by the President or Speaker. Then they sit, and the noes rise and are counted in like manner.] In the House of Commons every member must give his vote the one way or the other (Scob., 24), as it is not permitted to any one to withdraw who is in the House when the question is put, nor is any one to be told in the division who was not in when the question was put. 2 Hats., 140. This last position is always true when the vote is by yeas and nays, where the negative as well as affirmative of the question is stated by the president at the same time, and the vote of both sides begins and proceeds pari passu. It is true also when the question is put in the usual way, if the negative has also been put; but if it has not, the member entering, or any other member may speak, and even propose amendments, by which the debate may be opened again and the question be greatly deferred. And as some who have answered ay may have been changed by the new arguments, the affirmative must be put over again. If, then, the member entering may, by speaking a few words, occasion a repetition of a question, it would be useless to deny it on his simple call for it. While the House is telling, no member may speak or move out of his place, for if any mistake be suspected it must be told again. Mem. in Hakew., 26; 2 Hats., 143. If any difficulty arises in point of order during the division, the Speaker is to decide peremptorily, subject to the future censure of the House if irregular. He sometimes permits old experienced members to assist him with their advice, which they do sitting in their seats, covered, to avoid the appearance of debate; but this can only be with the Speaker's leave, else the division might last several hours. 2 Hats., 143. The voice of the majority decides; for the lex majoris partis is the law of all councils, elections, &c., where not otherwise expressly provided. Hakew., 93. But if the House be equally divided, "semper presumatur pro negante"; that is, the former law is not to be changed but by a majority. Towns., col. 134. When, from counting the House on a division, it appears that there is not a quorum, the matter continues exactly in the state in which it was before the division, and must be resumed at that point on any future day. 2 Hats., 126. 1606, May 1, on a question whether a member having said yea may afterward sit and change his opinion, a precedent was remembered by the Speaker, of Mr. Morris, attorney of the wards, in 39 Eliz., who in like case changed his opinion. Mem. in Hakew., 27. SEC. XXXVIII.-TITLES. After the bill has passed, and not before, the title may be amended, and is to be fixed by a question; and the bill is then sent to the other house. SEC. XXXIX.-RECONSIDERATION. In Parliament a question once carried cannot be questioned again at the same session, but must stand as the judgment of the House. Towns., col. 67; Mem. in Hakew., 33. And a bill once rejected, another of the same substance cannot be brought in again the same session. Hakew., 158; 6 Grey, 392. But this does not extend to prevent putting the same question in different stages of a bill, because every stage of a bill submits the whole and every part of it to the opinion of the House as open for amendment either by insertion or omission, though the same amendment has been accepted or rejected in a former stage. So in reports of committees, e. g., report of an address, the same question is before the House, and open for free discussion. Towns., col. 26; 2 Hats., 98, 100, 101. So orders of the House, RECONSIDERATION. 87 or instructions to committees, may be discharged. So a bill begun in one house and sent to the other, and there rejected, may be renewed again in that other, passed, and sent back. Ib., 92; 3 Hats., 161. Or if, instead of being rejected, they read it once and lay it aside, or amend it and put it off a month, they may order in another to the same effect, with the same or a different title. Hakew, 97, 98. Divers expedients are used to correct the effect of this rule; as by passing an explanatory act, if anything has been omitted or ill-expressed (3 Hats., 278), or an act to enforce, and make more effectual an act, &c., or to rectify mistakes in an act, &c., or a committee on one bill may be instructed to receive a clause to rectify the mistakes of another. Thus, June 24, 1685, a clause was inserted in a bill for rectifying a mistake committed by a clerk in engrossing a bill of supply. 2 Hats., 194, 6. Or the session may be closed for one, two, three, or more days, and a new one commenced. But then all matters depending must be finished, or they fall, and are to begin de novo. 2 Hats., 94, 98. Or a part of the subject may be taken up by another bill, or taken up in a different way. 6 Grey, 304, 316. And in cases of the last magnitude, this rule has not been so strictly and verbally observed as to stop indispensable proceedings altogether. 2 Hats., 92, 98. Thus when the address on the preliminaries of peace in 1782 had been lost by a majority of one; on account of the importance of the question, and the smallness of the majority, the same question in substance, though with some words not in the first, and which might change the opinion of some members, was brought on again and carried, as the motives for it were thought to outweigh the objection of form. 2 Hats., 99, 100. A second bill may be passed to continue an act of the same session, or to enlarge the time limited for its execution. 2 Hats., 95, 98. This is not in contradiction to the first act. SEC. XL.-BILLS SENT TO THE OTHER HOUSE. A bill from the other house is sometimes ordered to lie on the table. 2 Hats., 97. When bills, passed in one house and sent to the other, are grounded on special facts requiring proof, it is usual, either by message or at a conference, to ask the grounds and evidence; and this evidence, whether arising out of papers, or from the examination of witnesses, is immediately communicated. 3 Hats., 48. SEC. XLI.-AMENDMENTS BETWEEN THE HOUSES. When either house, e. g. the House of Commons, send a bill to the other, the other may pass it with amendments. The regular progression in this case is, that the commons disagree to the amendment; the lords insist on it; the commons insist on their disagreement; the lords adhere to their amendment; the commons adhere to their disagreement. The term of insisting may be repeated as often as they choose to keep the question open. But the first adherence by either renders it necessary for the other to recede or adhere also; when the matter is usually suffered to fall. 10 Grey, 148. Latterly, however, there are instances of their having gone to a second adherence. There must be an absolute conclusion of the subject somewhere, or otherwise transactions between the houses would become endless. 3 Hats., 268, 270. The term of insisting, we are told by Sir John Trevor, was then (1679) newly introduced into parliamentary usage by the lords. 7 Grey, 94. It was certainly a happy innovation, as it multiplies the opportunities of trying modifications which may bring the House to concurrence. Either house, however, is free to pass over the term of insisting, and to adhere in the first instance (10 Grey, 146); but it is not respectful to the other. In the ordinary parliamentary course, there are two free conferences, at least, before an adherence. 10 Grey, 147. Either house may recede from its amendment and agree to the bill; or recede from their disagreement to the amendment, and agree to the same absolutely, or with an amendment; for here the disagreement and receding destroy one another, and the subject stands as before the disagreement. Elsynge, 23, 27; 9 Grey, 476. But the House cannot recede from, or insist on its own amendment with an amendment; for the same reason that it cannot send to the other house an amendment to its own act after it has passed the act. They may modify an amendment from the other house by ingrafting an amendment on it, because they have never assented to it; but they cannot amend their own amendment, because they have, on the question, passed it in that form. 9 Grey, 363; 10 Grey, 240. In Senate, March 29, 1798. Nor where one house has adhered to their amendment, and the other agrees with an amendment, can the first house depart from the form which they have fixed by an adherence. In the case of a money bill, the lords' proposed amendments become, by delay, confessedly necessary. The commons, however, refused them, as infringing on their privilege as to money bills; but they offered themselves to add to the bill a proviso to the same effect, which had no coherence with the lords' amendments; and urged that it was an expedient, warranted by precedent, and not unparliamentary in a case become impracticable, and irremediable in any other way. 3 Hats., 256, 266, 270, 271. But the lords refused, and the bill was lost. 1 Chand., 288. A like case. 1 Chand., 311. So the commons resolved that it is unparliamentary to strike out, at a conference, anything in a bill which hath been agreed and passed by both houses. 6 Grey, 274; 1 Chand., 312. A motion to amend an amendment from the other house takes precedence of a motion to agree or disagree. A bill originating in one house is passed by the other with an amendment. The originating house agrees to their amendment with an amendment. The other may agree to their amendment with an amendment, that being only in the second and not the third degree; for, as to the amending house, the first amendment with which they passed the bill is a part of its text; it is the only text they have agreed to. The amendment to that text by the originating house, therefore, is only in the first degree, and the amendment to that again by the amending house is only in the second, to wit, an amendment to an amendment, and so admissible. Just so, when, on a bill from the originating house, the other, at its second reading makes an amendment; on the third reading this amendment is become the text of the bill, and if an amendment to it be moved, an amendment to that amendment may also be moved, as being only in the second degree. SEC. XLII.-CONFERENCES. It is on the occasion of amendments between the houses that conferences are usually asked; but they may be asked in all cases of difference of opinion between the two houses on matters depending between them. The request of a conference, CONFERENCES. 89 however, must always be by the house which is possessed of the papers. 3 Hats., 31; 1 Grey, 425. Conferences may be either simple or free. At a conference simply, written reasons are prepared by the house asking it, and they are read and delivered, without debate, to the managers of the other house at the conference; but are not then to be answered. 4 Grey, 144. The other house then, if satisfied, vote the reasons satisfactory or say nothing; if not satisfied, they resolve them not satisfactory, and ask a conference on the subject of the last conference, where they read and deliver, in like manner, written answers to those reasons. 3 Grey, 183. They are meant chiefly to record the justification of each house to the nation at large, and to posterity, and in proof that the miscarriage of a necessary measure is not imputable to them. 3 Grey, 255. At free conferences the managers discuss viva voce and freely, and interchange propositions for such modifications as may be made in a parliamentary way, and may bring the sense of the two houses together. And each party reports in writing to their respective house the substance of what is said on both sides, and it is entered in their journals. 9 Grey, 220; 3 Hats., 280. This report cannot be amended or altered, as that of a committee may be. Journal Senate, May 24, 1796. A conference may be asked before the house asking it has come to a resolution of disagreement, insisting or adhering. 3 Hats., 269, 341. In which case the papers are not left with the other conferees, but are brought back to be the foundation of the vote to be given. And this is the most reasonable and respectful proceeding; for, as was urged by the lords on a particular occasion, "it is held vain, and below the wisdom of Parliament, to reason or argue against fixed resolutions, and upon terms of impossibility to persuade." 3 Hats., 226. So the commons say an adherence is never delivered at a free couference, which implies debate." 10 Grey, 137. And on another occasion the lords made it an objection that the commons had asked a free conference after they had made resolutions of adhering. It was then affirmed, however, on the part of the commons, that nothing was more parliamentary than to proceed with free conferences after adhering (3 Hats., 269), and we do in fact see inferences of conference, or of free conference, asked after the resolution of disagreeing (3 Hats., 251, 253, 260, 286, 291, 316, 349); of insisting (Ib., 280, 296, 299, 319, 322, 355); of adhering (269, 270, 283, 300); and even of a second or final adherence. 3 Hats., 270. And in all cases of conference asked after a vote of disagreement, &c., the conferees of the house asking it are to leave the papers with the conferees of the other; and in one case, where they refused to receive them, they were left on the table in the conference chamber. (Ib., 271, 317, 323, 354; 10 Grey, 146.) After a free conference, the usage is to proceed with free conferences, and not to return again to a conference. 3 Hats., 270; 9 Grey, 229. After a conference denied, a free conference may be asked. 1 Grey, 45. When a conference is asked, the subject of it must be expressed, or the conference not agreed to. Ord. H. Com., 89; 1 Grey, 425; 7 Grey, 31. They are sometimes asked to inquire concerning an offense or default of a member of the other house. 6 Grey, 181; 1 Chand., 304. Or the failure of the other house to present to the King a bill passed by both houses. 8 Grey, 302. Or on information received, |