tents of the bill verbatim, only, instead of reading the formal parts, "Be it enacted," &c., he states that "preamble recites so and so the 1st section enacts that, &c.; the 2d section enacts," &c. [But in the Senate of the United States, both of these forinalities are dispensed with; the breviate presenting but an imperfect view of the bill, and being capable of being made to present a false one; and the full statement being a useless waste of time, immediately after a full reading by the Clerk, and especially as every member has a printed copy in his hand.] A bill on the third reading is not to be committed for the matter or body thereof, but to receive some particular clause or proviso, it hath been sometimes suffered, but as a thing very unusual. Hakew., 156. Thus, 27 El., 1584, a bill was committed on the third reading, having been formerly committed on the second, but is declared not usual. D'Ewes, 337, col. 2; 414, col. 2. When an essential provision has been omitted, rather than erase the bill and render it suspicious, they add a clause on a separate paper, engrossed and called a rider, which is read and put to the question three times. Elsynge's Memo., 59; 6 Grey, 335; 1 Blackst., 183. For examples of riders, see 3 Hats., 121, 122, 124, 156. Every one is at liberty to bring in a rider without asking leave. 10 Grey, 52. It is laid down as a general rule, that amendments proposed at the second reading shall be twice read, and those proposed at the third reading thrice read; as also all amendments from the other House. Town., col. 19, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. It is with great and almost invincible reluctance that amendments are admitted at this reading, which occasion erasures or interlineations. Sometimes a proviso has been cut off from a bill; sometimes erased. 9 Grey, 513. This is the proper stage for filling up blanks; for if filled up before, and now altered by erasure, it would be peculiarly unsafe. At this reading the bill is debated afresh, and for the most part is more spoken to at this time than on any of the former readings. Hakew., 153. The debate on the question whether it should be read a third time, has discovered to its friends and opponents the arguments on which each side relies, and which of these appear to have influence with the House; they have had time to meet them with new arguments, and to put their old ones into new shapes. The former vote has tried the strength of the first opinion, and furnished grounds to estimate the issue; and the question now offered for its passage is the last occasion which is ever to be offered for carrying or rejecting it. When the debate is ended, the Speaker, holding the bill in his hand, puts the question for its passage, by saying, "Gentlemen, all you who are of opinion that this bill shall pass, say aye;" and after the answer of the ayes, "All those of the contrary opinion, say no." Hakew., 154. After the bill is passed, there can be no further alteration of it in any point. Hakew., 159. SEC. XLI.-DIVISION OF THE HOUSE. The affirmative and negative of the question having been both put and answered, the Speaker declares whether the yeas or nays have it by the sound, if he be himself satisfied, and it stands as the judgment of the House. But if he be not himself satisfied which voice is the greater, or if before any other member comes into the House, or before any new motion made, (for it is too late after that,) any member shall rise and declare himself dissatisfied with the Speaker's decision, then the Speaker is to divide the House. Scob., 24; 2 Hats., 140. When the House of Commons is divided, the one party goes forth, and the other remains in the House. This has made it important which go forth and which remain; because the latter gain all the indolent, the indifferent, and inattentive. Their general rule, therefore, is, that those who give their vote for the preservation of the orders of the House shall stay in; and those who are for introducing any new matter or alteration, or proceeding contrary to the established course, are to go out. But this rule is subject to many exceptions and modifications. 2 Hats., 134; 1 Rush., p. 3, fol. 92; Scob., 43, 52; Co., 12, 116; D' Ewes, 505, col. 1; Mem. in Hakew., 25, 29; as will appear by the following statement of who go forth: Petition that it be received... Ayes. Read....... Lie on the table....... further proceeding... Ayes. Bill, that it be brought in..... Read first or second time... Committed. .... To Committee of the whole... To a select committee......... Report of bill to lie on table.. Be now read.............. Ayes. Noes. Ayes. Noes. Ayes. Be taken into consideration three months hence.. ) 30,P.J. 251. Amendments to be read a second time........... Noes. Clause offered on report of bill to be read second time For receiving a clause....... With amendm'ts be engrossed Ayes. 334. 395. For sitting on Sunday, or any other day not being a sitting day....... Ayes. of either House on any question, shall at 398. the desire of one-fifth of those present, be 260. entered on the journal." And again: that 259. in all cases of reconsidering a bill disapproved by the President, and returned with his objections, "the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journals of each House respectively."] 291. 344. [By the 16th and 17th rules of the Senate, when the yeas and nays shall be called for by one-fifth of the members present, each member called upon shall, unless for special reasons he be excused by the Senate, declare openly, and without debate, his assent or dissent to the question. In taking the yeas and nays, and upon the call of the House, the names of the members shall be taken alphabetically.] [ When the yeas and nays shall be taken upon any question in pursuance of the above rule, no member shall be permitted, under any circumstances whatever, to vote after the decision is announced from the Chair.] [When it is proposed to take the vote by yeas and nays, the President or Speaker states that "the question is whether, e. g., the bill shall pass-that it is proposed that the yeas and nays shall be entered on the journal. Those, therefore, who desire it, will rise." If he finds and declares that one-fifth have risen, he then states that "those who are of opinion that the bill shall pass are to answer in the affirmative; those of the contrary opinion in the nega tive." The Clerk then calls over the names alphabetically, note the yea or nay of each, and gives the list to the President or Speaker, who declares the result. In the Senate, if there be an equal division, the Secretary calls on the Vice-President and notes his affirmative or negative, which becomes the decision of the House.] The one party being gone forth, the Speaker names two tellers from the affirm- In the House of Commons, every memative and two from the negative side, who ber must give his vote the one way or the first count those sitting in the House and other, Scob., 24, as it is not permitted to report the number to the Speaker. Then any one to withdraw who is in the House they place themselves within the door, two when the question is put, nor is any one to on each side, and count those who went be told in the division who was not in when forth as they come in, and report the num-the question was put. 2 Hats., 140. ber 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 Senate, if they be equally divided, the Vice-President announces his opinion, which decides.] [The Constitution, however, has directed that "the yeas and nays of the members This last position is always true when the vote is by yeas and nays; where the negative as well as affirmative of the ques tion 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 an swered ay may have been changed by the new arguments, the affirmative must be [1798, Jan. A bill on its second reading being amended, and on the question whether it shall be read a third time negatived, was restored by a decision to reconsider that question. Here the votes of negative and reconsideration, like positive and negative quantities in equation, destroy one another, and are as if they were expunged from the journals. Consequently the bill is open for amendment, just so far as it was the moment preced that is to say, all parts of the bill are open for amendment except those on which votes have been already taken in its present stage. So, also, it may be recommitted.] If any difficulty arises in point of order during the division, the speaker is to de-ing the question for the third reading; cide 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 rule permitting a reconsideration of a question affixing to it no limitation of time or circumstance, it may be asked whether there is no limitation? If, after The voice of the majority decides; for the vote, the paper on which it is passed the lex majoris partis is the law of all has been parted with, there can be no recouncils, elections, &c., where not other-consideration; as if a vote has been for the wise 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. [But in the Senate of the United States, the Vice-President decides when the House is divided. Const. U. S. I, 3.] 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 afterwards 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. XLII.-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. XLIII.-RECONSIDERATION. [When a question has been once made and carried in the affirmative or negative, it shall be in order for any member of the majority to move for the reconsideration thereof; but no motion for the reconsideration of any vote shall be in order after a bill, resolution, message, report, amendment, or motion upon which the vote was taken shall have gone out of the possession of the Senate announcing their decision; nor shall any motion for reconsideration be in order unless made on the same day on which the vote was taken, or within the two next days of actual session of the Senate thereafter. Rule 20.] passage of a bill, and the bill has been sent to the other House. But where the paper remains, as on a bill rejected; when, or under what circumstances, does it cease to be susceptible of reconsideration? This remains to be settled; unless a sense that the right of reconsideration is a right to waste the time of the House in repeated agitations of the same question, so that it shall never know when a question is done with, should induce them to reform this anomalous proceeding.] 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, 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 re|jected, 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, *The rule now fixes a limitation. with the same or a different title. Hakew., | SEC. XLV.--AMENDMENTS BETWEEN THE 97, 98. 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 insist Divers expedients are used to correct the effects 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 rectify-ing may be repeated as often as they ing 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. 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 And in cases of the last magnitude, this Hats., 268, 270. The term of insisting, we rule has not been so strictly and verbally are told by Sir John Trevor, was then (1679) observed as to stop indispensable proceed-newly introduced into parliamentary usage, ings altogether. 2 Hats., 92, 98. Thus by the Lords. 7 Grey, 94. It was certainly a when the address on the preliminaries of happy innovation, as it multiplies the oppeace in 1782 had been lost by a majority portunities of trying modifications which of one, on account of the importance of may bring the Houses to a concurrence. the question, and smallness of the majority, Either House, however, is free to pass over the same question in substance, though the term of insisting, and to adhere in the 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. Hats., 95, 98. This is not in contradiction to the first act. SEC. XLIV.-BILLS SENT TO THE OTHER 2 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 agree ment. 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 [All bills passed in the Senate shall, before they are sent to the House of Re-send to the other House an amendment to presentatives, be examined by a committee, consisting of three members, whose duty it shall be to examine all bills, amendments, resolutions, or motions, before they go out of the possession of the Senate, and to make report that they are correctly engrossed; which report shall be entered on the journal. Rule 34.] 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 evi lence; and this evidence, whether arising out of papers, or from the examination of witnesses, is immediately communicated. 3 Hats., 48. 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 the 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 bily, the Lords' proposed amendments, become, by declay, 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 pro viso 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 2d and not the 3d 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 1st degree, and the amendment to that again by the amending House is only in the 2d, 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 2d degree. SEC. XLVI.-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, however, must always be by the House which is possessed of the papers. 3 Hats., 31; 1 Grey, 425. 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 Houses the substance of what is said on both sides, and it is entered on 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 conference, 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 adher ing, 3 Hats., 269, and we do in fact see instances of conference, or of free confer[ence, 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. 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 satisfac- When a conference is asked, the subject tory, or say nothing; if not satisfied, they of it must be expressed, or the conference resolve them not satisfactory and ask a not agreed to. Ord. H Com., 89; Grey, conference) on the subject of the last con- 425; 7 Grey, 31. They are sometimes asked ference, where they read and deliver, in to inquire concerning an offense or default like manner, written answers to those of a member of the other Icuse. 6 Grey, reasons. 3 Grey, 183. They are meant 181; 1 Chand., 304. Or the failure of the chiefly to record the justification of each other House to preser to the King a bill House to the nation at large, and to pos- passed by both Houses, 8 Grey, 302. Or on terity, and in proof that the miscarriage of I information received, and relating to the |