SECT. 7. When any member shall require a question to be determined by yeas and nays, the President shall take the sense of the Convention in that manner, provided that one fifth of the members present are in favor of it.

SECT. 8. He shall propound all questions, in the order they were moved, unless the subsequent motion shall be previous in its nature; except that in naming sums and fixing times, the largest sum and the longest time shall be first put.

SECT. 9. After a motion, being seconded, is stated or read by the President, it shall be deemed to be in possession of the Convention, and shall be disposed of by vote of the Convention; but the mover may withdraw it at any time before a decision or amendment.

SECT. 10. When a question is under debate, no motion shall be received but to adjourn, to lay on the table,-for the previous question,-to postpone indefinitely,to postpone to a day certain,-to commit, or-to amend; which several motions shall have precedence, in the order in which they stand arranged.

SECT. 11. The President shall consider a motion to adjourn as always in order, and it shall be decided without debate.

SECT. 12. He shall put the previous question in the following form, "shall the main question be now put," and all amendments or further debate of the main question shall be suspended, until the previous question be decided; and the previous question shall not be put, unless a majority of the members present are in favor of it. SECT. 13. When two or more members happen to rise at once, the President shall name the member who is first to speak.

SECT. 14. All committees, except such as the Convention shall from time to time determine to select by ballot, shall be nominated by the President.

SECT. 15. The President shall have the general direction of the Hall of the Convention, and of the Galleries. No person excepting members, officers and attendants of the Convention and such persons as may be invited by the Convention, or by the President shall be admitted within the Hall. The chairman of each committee of the whole, during the sitting of such committee, shall have the like power of preserv ing order in the hall and in the galleries.

CHAPTER II.

Of the Rights, Duties and Decorum of Members.

SECT. 1. When any member is about to speak in debate or deliver any matter to the Convention, he shall rise and respectfully address the President; he shall confine himself to the question under debate, and avoid personality. He shall sit down as soon as he has done speaking.

SECT. 2. No member in debate shall mention a member then present by his name, but may describe him by the town he represents, the place he sits in, or such other designations as may be intelligible and respectful.

SECT. 3. No member speaking shall be interrupted by another, but by rising up to call to order, or to correct a mistake. But if any member in speaking or otherwise, transgress the rules of the Convention, the President shall, or any member may, call to order, in which case, the member so called to order, shall immediately sit down unless permitted to explain, and the Convention shall, if appealed to, decide on the case, but without debate; if there be no appeal, the decision of the chair shall be submitted to.

SECT. 4. No member shall speak more than twice to the same question, without first obtaining leave of the Convention, nor more than once, until all other members desiring to speak, shall have spoken.

SECT. 5. When any member shall make a motion, and such motion shall be seconded by another, the same shall be received and considered by the Convention, and not otherwise; and no member shall be permitted to lay a motion in writing on the table, until he has read the same in his place, and the same has been seconded.

SECT. 6. Every motion shall be reduced to writing if the President direct it, or at the request of any member of the Convention.

[Sec. 7, not accepted but recommitted.]

SECT. 8. No member shall be permitted to stand up to the interruption of another, whilst any member is speaking, or pass unnecessarily between the President and the person speaking.

SECT. 9. When a vote is declared by the President, and any member rises to doubt the vote, the Convention shall be returned and the vote made certain, without any further debate upon the question.

SECT. 10. Every member neglecting to give his attendance in Convention for

more than six days after the commencement of the session, shall be held to render the reason of such neglect; and in case the reason assigned shall be deemed sufficient, such member shall be entitled to receive pay for his travel, but not otherwise. No member shall be absent more than two days without leave of the Convention, and no leave of absence shall avail any member, who retains his seat more than five days from the time the same was obtained.

SECT. 11. All papers relative to any business before the Convention shall be left with the secretary, by any member who may obtain leave of absence, having such papers in his possession.

SECT. 12. When any member shall violate any of the rules and orders of the Convention, and the Convention shall have determined that he has so transgressed, he shall not be allowed to speak or vote, until he has made satisfaction, unless by way of excuse for the same.

SECT. 13. Every member who shall be in the Convention when a question is put, shall give his vote, unless the Convention, for special reasons, shall excuse him. SECT. 14. On a previous question, no member shall speak more than once, without leave.

SECT. 15. A motion for commitment, until it is decided, shall preclude all amendment of the main question.

SECT. 16. All motions and reports may be committed or recommitted, at the pleasure of the Convention.

SECT. 17. The division of a question may be called for, where the sense will admit of it; but a question to strike out and insert shall be deemed indivisible.

SECT. 18. When the reading of a paper is called for, and the same is objected to by any member, it shall be determined by a vote of the Convention.

SECT. 19. The unfinished business, in which the Convention was engaged at the time of the last adjournment, shall have the preference in the orders of the day, and no motion or any other business shall be received without special leave of the Convention, until the former is disposed of.

SECT. 20. No standing rule or order of the Convention shall be rescinded or changed, without one day's notice being given of the motion therefor.

SECT. 21. When a vote is doubted, the members for or against the question, when called on by the President, shall rise and stand uncovered, until they are counted.

CHAPTER III.

Of the appointment and duties of Monitors.

SECT. 1. One Monitor shall be appointed by the President for each division of the Convention, whose duty it shall be to see the due observance of the orders of the Convention, and on demand of the President, or of the chairman in committee of the whole, to return the number of votes and members in their respective divisions.

SECT. 2. If any member shall transgress any of the rules or orders of the Convention, and shall persist therein after being notified thereof by any Monitor, it shall be the duty of such Monitor to give information thereof to the Convention.

SECT. 3. In case the President shall be absent at the hour to which the Convention stands adjourned, the Secretary shall call the Convention to order, and shall preside until a President pro tempore shall be chosen, which shall be the first business of the Convention.

CHAPTER IV.

Of Communications, Committees, Reports, and Resolutions.

SECT. 1. All memorials and other papers, addressed to the Convention, shall be presented by the President, or by a member in his place, and shall lie on the table, to be taken up in the order in which they were presented, unless the Convention shall otherwise direct.

SECT. 2. No committee shall sit, during the sitting of the Convention, without special leave.

SECT. 3. The rules of proceeding in Convention shall be observed in a committee of the whole, so far as they may be applicable, excepting the rule limiting the times of speaking; but no member shall speak twice to any question, until every member choosing to speak shall have spoken.

SECT. 4. Every motion or resolution, which proposes an alteration in the constitution, and all reports of Committees, appointed to consider the propriety and expediency of making any alteration therein, shall be discussed in committee of the whole, before they are debated and finally acted upon in Convention.

SECT. 5. Every resolution of the Convention, proposing any alteration in the constitution, shall be read on two several days, before it is finally acted upon and adopted by the Convention.

SECT. 6. In all elections by ballot, of committees of the Convention, the person having the highest number of votes shall act as chairman; and when the committee is nominated by the Chair, the person first named shall be chairman.

A rule in the original report, providing that in case the President should be absent at the time for calling the House to order, one of the monitors should call the House to order, and preside until a President pro-tempore should be chosen, was the subject of some debate. The rule was finally altered so as to make it the duty of the Secretary to preside in the case specified.

Mr. BLISS of Springfield moved to amend the rule providing for the case of reconsideration, in such manner that no vote of the House should be reconsidered, except on motion of a member who voted with the majority.

A member, whose name we did not learn, objected to the amendment, that it would preclude any one who was absent, or did not vote, from the right of moving a reconsideration.

Mr. WEBSTER said that it was proper it should operate in that manner; it was the duty of every member to be present. No one should be absent flattering himself that he might remedy any mischief that he conceived to be done in his absence, by moving a reconsideration of the subject.

Mr. DANA of Groton observed that we ought to guard against trammelling ourselves with too much regulation. He thought it improper that the right of moving for reconsideration should be confined to one who voted in the majority. We are in the habit of reviewing our proceedings, and an opportunity for reconsideration should be open. Besides, it might be unpleasant for a member in the minority, to be under the necessity of supplicating one in the majority, to make a motion for him.

Mr. QUINCY of Boston said, that from the very nature of a proposition for reconsideration it should come from the majority. It is a proposition to review, for the purpose of furnishing the opportunity for members to vote differently from what they had already voted. The motion therefore should come from one who wished this opportunity, and not from those who were satisfied with the vote they had given, and only wished to bring the majority to their opinion. He said, also, that it was improper that a member who has had the opportunity of urging his views and been overruled by the House, should have the power of renewing it under the shape of a reconsideration.

Mr. SLOCUMB of Dartmouth said that he was afraid we were pursuing a shadow and losing the substance. That by endeavoring to save time by limiting the right of reconsideration, we might be disabled from coming to the most mature results; that a minority of great talents because they were out-voted would be deprived of the opportunity of enlightening the majority and inducing them to change their opinion, unless some one would accommodate them by making the motion.

Mr. WEBSTER said he considered the rule to be of great importance; he wished every subject which came before the Convention to be thoroughly discussed, but he wished it to be done according to the rules of legislative bodies, which amply provided for mature deliberation, and guarded against surprise by requiring every act to pass through several readings at prescribed periods. Every member conversant with the proceedings of deliberative assemblies must have observed the inconvenience from the practice of frequently reconsidering votes which have been passed. No vote should pass without every member being ready to act upon it at the several stages.

Mr. SIBLEY of Sutton said he had another objection to the amendment of the member from Springfield; that it was impossible to tell who did vote in the majority, and that some mode therefore of ascertaining this should be inserted in the rule. He was however himself opposed to the whole amendment.

Mr. QUINCY said that if the question had been taken by yeas and nays, it would appear on the journals who voted in the majority, and in any case, the member moving for a reconsideration would show his right to make the motion by stating that he had so voted.

Mr. FOSTER of Littleton said he was not satisfied with the rule. He said we were debarred by it of privileges to which we had been accustomed. It had been urged that it would shorten debate, but he said that a minority might convince the majority and it was more important to come to a right decision than to save the time of the Convention.

He

Mr. PRINCE of Boston spoke against the amendment. agreed that it was the duty of members to be present. But a member from one of the neighboring towns might go home on Saturday with the best intentions of returning on Monday, but be prevented by a storm or accident. He thought that in any such case they ought not to be precluded from the right of being heard. Mr. MATTOON of Amherst moved that this article should be recommitted to the committee who reported it.

Mr. DAWES of Boston opposed the recommitment, and expressed his hope that the motion to amend would prevail, for the reasons that had been stated, and for the additional one, that in all large bodies some members wanted to be speaking all the time, and it was necessary to have rules to restrain them. With respect to the difficulty of the gentleman from Sutton, that there was no mode of ascertaining who was in the majority, he said we might rely on the honor of any member of the Convention.

Mr. BLAKE of Boston was opposed to the recommitment because he was satisfied with the amendment proposed. He said that if ever there were an occasion for being governed by prescribed rules of proceeding to prevent debates from running to an unnecessary length, it is now, in so numerous an assembly, almost a council of five hundred. From the importance of the occasion every member would be disposed to be in his place.

Mr. MATTOON said that he did not move to recommit, because he was averse to the amendment; on the contrary, he approved of it; but he thought the recommitment would give an opportunity to gentlemen of considering the subject and satisfying themselves.

Mr. APTHORP of Boston spoke in favor of the recommitment. Mr. MORTON of Dorchester was opposed to the recommitment and to the amendment. He said every member should have equal rights, and that he would rather prohibit all reconsideration, than that a delegate from one town should be allowed to call for it, while the right was denied to another.

Mr. AUSTIN of Boston was in favor of the amendment, but thought it necessary to recommit, for the purpose of rendering the rule more perfect in another respect. He replied to the argument of the gentleman who preceded him.

The question of recommitment was taken, and decided in the affirmative, 249 to 97.

Mr. JOHN PHILLIPS of Boston moved to amend by striking out the rule which prohibits any one in debate from speaking of a member who is present, by his name. He thought that in smaller bodies the rule was a good one; but in the present assembly containing so many members from a single town, it was in some instances impossible to designate an individual alluded to, in the mode required by the rule.

He

Mr. STORY of Salem said it was not consistent with the dignity of the assembly to depart from the usage of all deliberative bodies, and to permit individuals to be called by name in debate. thought there would be no difficulty in adhering to the rule. Mr. PICKMAN of Salem spoke against the amendment. Mr. SIBLEY of Sutton was in favor of the amendment. thought the rule unnecessary. Our rules would be known abroad, and he was averse to its going across the Atlantic that we are so uncivil, as to require being trammelled by such rules.

He

Mr. WEBSTER observed, that the best argument in favor of the rule was, that the reasons offered against it, are in contradiction to each other. It was objected to by the mover of the amendment, that it could not be enforced, and by the gentleman who last spoke, that it would enforce itself.

Mr. SIBLEY rose to explain. The motion to amend was withdrawn.

Mr. MORTON moved to amend the rule regulating the taking of yeas and nays. He moved to strike out the number "fifty," required for taking the yeas and nays, and to insert "one hundred." He said that much time was wasted in a call of the yeas and nays, and that fifty was too small a number of members to be entitled to make the call. His motion was adopted-226 in favor, and 137 against it.

Mr. QUINCY moved to strike out the rule for the purpose of introducing a substitute, the nature and object of which he explained. This motion was carried, 297 voting in favor. He proposed a rule,