ation of time or circumstance, it may be asked whether there is no limitation? If, after the vote, the paper on which it is passed has been parted with, there can be no reconsideration; as if a vote has been for the 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 repented agitations of the same question, so that it shall never know when a question is done with, should induce them to reform this anomolous 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 committee, 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 different title. Hakew., 97, 98.

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, etc., or to rectify mistakes in act, etc., 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 depend ng must be finished, or they fall, and are to begin de novo. 3 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 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 or 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.

SECTION XLIV.

BILLS SENT TO THE OTHER HOUSE.

[All bills passed in the Senate shall, before they are sent to the House of Representatives, be examined by a committee, consisting of three members, whose duty 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 33.]

A bill from the other house is sometimes ordered to lie on the table. 2 Hats., 7.

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. 8 Hate., 48.

SECTION XLV.

AMENDMENTS BETWEEN THE HOUSES.

When either house, e. g., the House of Commons, sends 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 houses 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; 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 forur. 9 Grey, 363; 1) 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 bill, the lords' proposed amendments become, by delay, confessedly neccessary. The commons, however, refused them, as infringing on their privileges 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 was unparliamentary to strike out, at a conference, anything in a bill which had 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 disagrec.

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.

SECTION 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 with 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 delivored, 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 reason 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 jurisdiction 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 Houses 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 of 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 adhering, (3 Hats., 269,) and we do in fact see inferences of conferences, 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, etc., the conferces 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 couference chamber. Ib., 317, 323, 354; 10 Grey, 146.

After a free conference, the usage is to proceed with free conferences, and not 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, and relating to the safety of the nation. 10 Grey, 171. Or when the methods of Parliament are thought by the one House to have been departed from by the other, a conference is asked to come to a right understanding thereon. 10 Grey, 148. So when an unparliamentary message has been sent, instead of answering it, they ask a conference. 3 Grey, 155. For

merly an address or article of impeachment, or a bill with amendments, or a vote of the House, or concurrence in a vote, or a message from the King, were sometimes communicated by way of conference. 6 Grey, 128, 300, 387; 7 Grey, 80; 8 Grey, 210, 255; 1 Torbuck's Deb., 278; 10 Grey, 293; 1 Chandler, 49, 287. But this is not the modern practice. 8 Grey, 255.

A conference has been asked after the first reading of the bill, 1 Grey, 194. This is a singular instance.

SECTION XLVII.

MESSAGES.

Messages between the Houses are to be sent only while both Houses are sitting. 3 Hats., 15. They are received during debate without adjourning the debate. 3 Hats., 22.

[In Senate the messengers are introduced in any state of business, except, 1. While a question is putting. 2. While the yeas and nays are calling. 3. While the ballots are counting. Rule 47. The first case is short; the second and third are cases where any interruption might occasion errors difficult to be corrected. So arranged June 15, 1788.]

In the House of Representatives, as in Parliament, if the House be in committee when a messenger attends, the Speaker takes the chair to receive the message, and then quits it to return into committee, without any question or interruption. 4 Grey, 226.

Messengers are not saluted by the members, but by the Speaker of the House. 2 Grey, 253, 274.

If messengers commit an error in delivering their message, they may be admitted or called in to correct their message. 4 Grey, 41. Accordingly, March 13, 1800, the Senate having made two amendments to a bill from the House of Representatives, their Secretary, by mistake, delivered one only, which being inadmissible by itself, that House disagreed, and notified the Senate of their disagreement. This produced a discovery of the mistake. The Secretary was sent to the other House to correct his mistake, the correction was received, and the two amendments acted on de novo.

As soon as the messenger, who has brought the bills from the other House, has retired, the Speaker holds the bills in his hand, and acquaints the House "that the other House have by their messenger sent certain bills," and then reads their titles, and delivers them to the Clerk, to be safely kept till they shall be called for to be read. Hakew., 178.

It is not the usage for one House to inform the other by what numbers a bill has passed. 10 Grey, 150. Yet they have sometimes recommended a bill as of great importance, to the consideration of the House to which it is sent. 3 IIate., 25. Nor when they have rejected a bill from the other House, do they give notice of it; but it passes sub silentio, to prevent unbecoming altercations. 1 Blackst., 183.

But in Congress the rejection is notified by message to the House in which bill originated.]

à question is never asked by the one House of the other by way of mes