a reconsideration as often as the Convention
might choose, whereas the amendment moved by
Mr. Morton in the Massachusetts Convention,
authorized a reconsideration once only.
Mr, MCLANE replied that he did not object to
that, but to the number required for reconsidera-
tion. The two rules were identical in that re-
spect, and the present amendment was open to all
the objections taken to the other. Mr. Webster,
in speaking of the amendment moved by Mr.
Morton, said that he "thought, of all the various
propositions which the occasion had elicited,
that now before the Convention was the most ex-
traordinary. It appeared to him to be in many
respects objectionable. In the first place, what
is meant by requiring as many votes to reconsider
a motion, as were in favor of the original mea-
sure? Suppose the question were on the adop-
tion of an amendment—a very small number, for
example, five, might be in favor of it, and all the
rest against it. Yet this case, by the proposed
rule, the vote was necessarily to be reconsidered.
The honorable gentleman had drawn his motion,
as if affirmative voles only could bereconsidered
and had made no provision at all for the recon-
sideration of negative votes. Again, according
to this provision, a motion for reconsideration,
might be made and discussed for a week; then
put to the vote, and although carried affirmatively
by a majority, have no effect, and be declared a
nullity, because the majority was not large enough
He begged leave to dissent entirely and most
widely from all such modes of proceeding. All
rules respecting reconsideration, were intended
and adopted for the purpose of ascertaining un-
der what circumstances, and by whom a motion
for reconsideration might be brought forward.
But when once brought forward, it must of course,
like all other motions, be decided by a major-
ity. Nobody, he believed, ever before heard of
a rule by which a motion to reconsider, when
once regularly made, was not to be decided like
other motions. It might well be doubted whether
the Convention could prescribe any such rules—
rules by which any thing, more than a majority
of members, would he required for the decision
of any question regularly before it."
Such was the language of Mr. Webster in the
Massachusetts Convention, upon a question iden-
tical with that now under consideration. By
making the change proposed, infinite confusion
would result, it would be impossible to go back
and reconsider, with no matter how strong mo-
tives, without rescinding the rule. It was tying
up the hands of the Convention, and placing a
matter once decided upon, beyond their reach,
He did not question the evil effects of the rule as
it now stood; but he disapproved of the remedy
proposed. He would adopt Mr. Webster's sug-
gestion, and re-enact the rule which was originally
adopted by the Convention, rescinding the
amendment by which a member voting in the
minority was allowed to move to reconsider. He
considered this one of the most important rules
of the body; and especially important as it was
their purpose and object to frame a Constitution
to endure for many years unchanged; and not
merely to legislate—their acts and the mischiev- |
ous effects resulting from them being capable of
easy correction. He could not give the amend-
ment his approbation.
Mr. BOWIE said, that it seemed to him that one
of two things ought to be done; either to go back
to the original rule which required that a mem-
ber voting in the majority should move a re-con-
sideration; or to adopt some such provision as
that proposed by the gentleman from Kent. pis
own opinion was that the better way would be to
adopt the original rule as reported by the com-
mittee on rules. He was not present when the
motion was made by the gentleman from Fred-
erick to amend the rules, by allowing a mem-
ber who voted in the minority to move a re-
consideration If he had been present, he would
have opposed it; foreseeing that it would lead to
irreparable mischief. The whole evils which
had occurred, grew entirely out of that rule.
There was some restraint upon the power of re-
consideration as long as it was confined to those
voting in the majority; but the very moment any
member was allowed, whether voting in the ma-
jority or in the minority, to move a reconsideration,
all restriction was abandoned, and all the
evils resulted, to which allusion had been made.
What on one day was decided by a large majori-
ty of the members of the Convention, might be
overthrown the next day by a mere minority.
He professed to be a reformer. He was as
anxious as any gentleman in the Convention, to
see great questions of reform carried in this body.
He did not wish to see those measures jeoparded
by a minority vote of the House, The effect of
the rule as it stood was undoubtedly to allow a
minority to undo what the majority had done.
No matter how wholesome and judicious the law
or regulation of reform might be, which should
be adopted by the majority, if the friends of the
reform would chance to be absent, on another
day, the anti-reformers could repeal it. The
Convention ought to be guarded and to take care
not to allow any rule to place it in that position,
This was the effect of the rule established upon
the motion of the gentleman from Frederick; as
it allowed a gentleman voting in the minority to
move a reconsideration, it was not probable
that a reconsideration could take place without
sufficient grounds under the old rule; which was
that prevailing in all deliberative bodies in all the
States of the Union, everywhere, except in the
Reform Convention of Maryland. He would
undertake to say that there was no deliberative
body upon the face of the globe, where such a
rule had been adopted for a moment. Believing
that the true plan was to go back to the original
rule, he would propose as a substitute, if the gen-
tleman from Kent, [Mr. Chambers,] would ac-
cept it, the following resolution:
"Resolved, That so much of the rule as allows
a member voting in the minority to move a re-
consideration of the question, shall be and the
same is hereby rescinded."
Mr. JENIFER considered the question too simple
to require a prolonged discussion. It was wheth-
er a minority should be allowed to adopt or reject
measures which had previously been decided
to the contrary by a larger vote. It had been |
