OF RECONSIDERATION.
250. It is a principle of parliamentary law, upon which many of the
rules and proceedings previously stated are founded, that when a
question has once been put to a deliberative assembly, and decided,
whether in the affirmative or negative, that decision is the judgment
of the assembly, and cannot be again brought into question.
251. This principle holds equally, although the question proposed is
not the identical question which has already been decided, but only
its equivalent; as, for example, where the negative of one question
amounts to the affirmative of the other, and leaves no other
alternative, these questions are the equivalents of one another, and a
decision of the one necessarily concludes the other.
252. A common application of the rule as to equivalent questions
occurs in the case of an amendment proposed by striking out words; in
which it is the invariable practice to consider the negative of
striking out as equivalent to the affirmative of agreeing; so that to
put a question on agreeing, after a question on striking out its
negatived, would be, in effect, to put the same question twice over.
253. The principle above stated does not apply so as to prevent
putting the same question in the different stages of any proceeding;
as, for example, in legislative bodies, the different stages of a
bill; so, in considering reports of committees, questions already
taken and decided, before the subject was referred, may be again
proposed; and, in like manner, orders of the assembly, and
instructions or references to committees, may be discharged or
rescinded.
254. The inconvenience of this rule, which is still maintained in all
its strictness in the British parliament (though divers expedients are
there resorted to to counteract or evade it),[35] has led to the
introduction into the parliamentary practice of this country of the
motion for _reconsideration_; which, while it recognizes and upholds
the rule in all its ancient strictness, yet allows a deliberative
assembly, for sufficient reasons, to relieve itself from the
embarrassment and inconvenience, which would occasionally result from
a strict enforcement of the rule in a particular case.
255. It has now come to be a common practice in all our deliberative
assemblies, and may consequently be considered as a principle of the
common parliamentary law of this country, to reconsider a vote already
passed, whether affirmatively or negatively.
256. For this purpose, a motion is made and seconded, in the usual
manner, that such a vote be reconsidered; and, if this motion
prevails, the matter stands before the assembly in precisely the same
state and condition, and the same questions are to be put in relation
to it, as if the vote reconsidered had never been passed. Thus, if an
amendment by inserting words is moved and rejected, the same amendment
cannot be moved again; but, the assembly may reconsider the vote by
which it was rejected, and then the question will recur on the
amendment, precisely as if the former vote had never been passed.
257. It is usual in legislative bodies, to regulate by a special rule
the time, manner, and by whom, a motion to reconsider may be made;
thus, for example, that it shall be made only on the same or a
succeeding day,—by a member who voted with the majority,—or at a time
when there are as many members present as there were when the vote was
passed; but, where there is no special rule on the subject, a motion
to reconsider must be considered in the same light as any other
motion, and as subject to no other rules.
35. “The English Parliament rigidly maintains the principle that when
a subject has been once decided, either in the affirmative or
negative, it is to remain permanently as the judgment of the
house. To remedy the inconveniences that sometimes occur, it
resorts to various expedients; as, by passing an explanatory act,
or an act to rectify mistakes in an act, etc.”—Ed.