CONGRESS. (THE RULES.) 



183 



presented is due entirely to the fact that until recent 

 years members have not sat in their seats in the House 

 and refused to vote when their names were called. 



The House, for convenience, commits temporarily 

 its jurisdiction to standing and select committees. It 

 never parts with or permanently surrenders it. That 

 jurisdiction so committed is returned to the House 

 with the hill or proposition, and is again referred by 

 the House for convenience to a Committee of the Whole. 

 That the action of that committee is purely prelimi- 

 nary and advisory is demonstrated by the fact that no 

 proposition pending therein can be laid upon the table ; 

 that the previous question can not be ordered therein ; 

 that a motion to reconsider can not be made ; that the 

 yeas and nays can not be taken, and, finally, that it 

 can not adjourn. 



The action of the Committee of the Whole being, 

 therefore, purely advisory and concluding nothing, it 

 is clear that this provision can not be in contravention 

 of the Constitution which is silent on the subject 

 and is in harmony with the well-recognized principles 

 and practice of the English Parliament, the original 

 sources of our parliamentary rules and practice and of 

 modern constitutional governments. 



"I pause merely long enough to say that many 

 men have heretofore advocated this. That great 

 parliamentarian, once a member of this House 

 and afterward Vice-President, noted everywhere 

 for his intelligence and his conservatism William 

 A. Wheeler favored a provision similar to this. 

 It was favored by many great commoners from 

 time to time. A gentleman now dead, but for- 

 merly a member of this House, Mr. Garfield, in- 

 troduced a resolution like this. Another gentle- 

 man, the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Kasson, and 

 the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. McCreary), 

 and another gentleman from Kentucky, not in 

 this Congress, Mr. Willis, and other gentlemen 

 from time to time have advocated this provision. 



" Why, gentlemen, in the English Parliament 

 of between six and seven hundred members in 

 committee and in the House of Parliament 40 

 make a quorum. 



" This proposition is to make the number one 

 hundred a quorum in Committee of the Whole, 

 and I want to say that, after sixteen years of 

 service in this cause, I am satisfied that at the 

 sessions of the Committee of the Whole there are 

 not present one half of the time one hundred 

 membbrs. I have stood by this desk hour after 

 hour in charge of appropriation and other bills, 

 begging gentlemen not to make the point of ' no 

 quorum.' 1 have time and again accepted amend- 

 ments and bought the poor privilege of going 

 on with the consideration of bills by accepting 

 amendments upon condition that gentlemen 

 would abstain from making the point of ' no 

 quorum.' What does the Committee of the Whole 

 do! It considers matters committed to it by the 

 House, just as the Appropriations Committee, or 

 as the Ways and Means Committee, considers 

 matters committed to them. The Committee of 

 the Whole consists of all the members of the 

 House, if they want to be present, as they ought 

 to be, and after that committee considers the 

 business, then it reports it back with a recom- 

 mendation, and then, for the first time, the House 

 acts and accepts or rejects the recommendation of 

 the Committee of the Whole. 



" Now, Mr. Speaker, there are other desirable 

 amendments in this code of rules. One is that 

 the Committee of the Whole may determine, in 

 the absence of a direction on the part of the 



House, its own business. Gentlemen remember 

 that under the rules of the last House the House 

 would resolve itself into Committee ot the Whole 

 and there would be perhaps 500 bills upon the cal- 

 endar. The House desired, say, to reach No 500. 

 The only way that could be done, under the 

 rules, was to go into committee ; then somebody 

 would object to bill No. 1, and then, under the 

 rule, the committee would dissolve and go back 

 into the House, and the House would determine 

 whether bill No. 1 should be considered in Com- 

 mittee of the Whole, and that meant a yea-and- 

 nay vote, occupying an hour's time. Then the 

 House would go back into Committee of the 

 Whole and bill No. 2 would be reached, and 

 somebody would object to that bill, and the com- 

 mittee would resolve itself back into the House 

 again, and another hour's time would be con- 

 sumed. So that to reach bill No. 500, if every 

 point was insisted upon, five hundred hours 

 would be required. Those were rules to ex- 

 pedite business. By this code we propose to 

 give to the Committee of the Whole the right to 

 determine what bill or what business it will con- 

 sider. 



" I now call attention to Rule XXIV. 



" Order of Business, Rule XXIV in the pro- 

 posed code, has been completely reconstructed 

 as compared with Rule XXIV in the old code, 

 and I can perhaps best explain it by reading the 

 report of the committee covering the same : 



Instead of the former rule requiring on Monday a call 

 of States and Territories for the introduction of bills, 

 etc., it has been proposed by clauses 1 and 3 of Rule 

 XXII to refer all bills, etc., to appropriate commit- 

 tees, as required under Rule XI, and clause 5 of Rule 

 XXI, by delivering them, in the case of private bills, 

 to the clerk, and or public bills to the Speaker. 



Corrections in case of erroneous reference have also 

 been provided for, giving, in the opinion of the com- 

 mittee, all reasonable opportunity for legitimate mo- 

 tions touching the proper reference of a bill. The 

 reference of joint and concurrent resolutions and me- 

 morials of State and Territorial Legislatures, and of 

 resolutions of inquiry addressed to heads or execu- 

 tive departments lias been provided for as previously 

 stated. 



Clause 2 of the former rule has been- amended by 

 the substitution of the following, namely : 



Business on the Speaker's table shall be disposed 

 of as follows : 



Messages from the President, reports and communi- 

 cations from the heads of departments, and other com- 

 munications addressed to the House, and bills, res- 

 olutions, and messages from the Senate shall be re- 

 ferred to appropriate committees without debate ; but 

 House bills with Senate amendments, except reve- 

 nue and general appropriation bills, and river and 

 harbor bills, may be at once disposed of as the House 

 may determine ; as may also Senate bills substantially 

 the same as House bills already favorably reported on 

 by a committee of the House on motion directed to be 

 made by such committee. 



The committee do not deem it necessary to say 

 more with respect to the amendment of former clause 

 2 than that it affords an opportunity for the House to 

 complete the legislation upon which it has already 

 substantially passed. The amendments may be, and 

 usually are, unimportant, and relate to the form rather 

 than the substance of the bill. Under well-recognized 

 principles, therefore, of legislative procedure, this en- 

 ables the House either to conclude legislation or put 

 the matter into conference. 



It will be noticed, however, that if either the Sen- 

 ate amendment to the House bill or the original Sen- 

 ate bill is subject to a point of order under Rule XX 



