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ceptible of division, first, upon asking another committee of conference; and, secondly, upon the instructions. As to the right to move instructions the Chair has no doubt.-Congressional Globe, part 1, first session Thirtyeighth Congress, page 892.

The decision of the Speaker was acquiesced in by the House, no appeal being taken, and the resolution of Mr. Washburne was agreed to.

On the following day, the action of the House of Representatives having been communicated to the Senate, Mr. Sherman offered the following resolution :

Resolved, That the conference requested by the House of Representatives be agreed to; and that the conferrees heretofore appointed by the Senate be instructed to agree to proper amendments to the Senate amendments disagreed to by the House, providing for a tax of not exceeding 20 cents a gallon on spirits on hand for sale.—Ibid., page 900.

Mr. Fessenden thereupon raised the question of order that the resolution submitted by Mr. Sherman was not in order, which point of order was overruled by the Vice-President (Mr. Hamlin) in the following words:

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Chair can have no doubt that the resolution proposed by the Senator from Ohio is in order. Conferences are of two characters-free and simple. A free conference is that which leaves the committee of conference entirely free to pass upon any subject where the two branches have disagreed in their votes, not, however, including any action upon any subject where there has been a concurrent vote of both branches. A simple conference-perhaps it should more properly be termed a strict or a specific conference, though the parliamentary term is "simple"-is that which confines the committee of conference to the specific instructions of the body appointing it. The Chair therefore rules that the resolution is in order.

With the single exception of the decision of the Senate on a resolution of instructions in regard to what is known as the "salary-grab" proposition in the Forty-second Congress, it has been uniformly held in the Senate that instructions to conference committees were in order. In that instance the presiding officer (Senator Edmunds), in accordance with the precedents and practice of the Senate, held the motion to instruct in order.

A decision of Speak er Carlisle in relation to an alleged departure from instructions by the House by its conferrees is so

important, that it, together with the question raised, is given in full from the Journal of July 31, 1886 (1, 49, pp. 2458-2459):

The Speaker stated the regular order to be the reading of the statement accompanying the report of the managers on the part of the House on the disagreeing votes of the two houses upon the amendment of the Senate to the bill of the House No. 7430 (river and harbor appropriation bill), pending when the House adjourned on yesterday.

The same having been read

Mr. Hatch made the point of order that the committee having been instructed by the resolutions adopted by the House upon the 27th instant to insist upon the disagreement to the items contained in the Senate amendment relating to the Portage and Lake Superior Ship-Canal, the Lake Michigan and Hennepin Canal, and the Sturgeon Bay and Lake Michigan Canal, it was not in order for the committee to agree to any conference report in violation of said instructions.

The Speaker overruled the point of order upon the ground that the proceedings when there had been a disagreement between the two branches of a legislative body are different in many respects from the proceedings in other cases. The paramount object of all such proceedings is to bring the two brauches to an agreement. Therefore, either may, without reconsidering previous votes, take action in a directly opposite direction. For instance, the House may refuse to concur in an amendment and may afterward insist again and again upon its disagreement to the amendment, and yet it may ultimately, without reconsidering any of these votes, recede absolutely from its disagreemet or recede from it with an amendment, as its judgment may dictate. And while it is competent under the recent practice of the House to instruct conference committees, still the House in that case, as in the other, may ultimately recede from its disagreement to the very amendment in regard to which it bad instructed its conferrees to insist on a disagreement; and that may be done with or without a conference report upon the subject.

The whole effect of the conference report in such a case is to bring the matter again directly before the body for its consideration and action, and does not bind the House at all. The House may refuse to agree to it, in which case the whole subject is again open; and the House may absolutely recede from its disagreement to the Senate amendment, or recede with an amendment, which is the course recommended by the present managers of the conference on the part of the House.

Two decisions of Speaker Carlisle as to new matter in a con ference report not germane to the bill, and as to whether or not such report must receive its consideration in a Committee of the Whole under clause 3 of Rule XXIII are also so impor tant, that they are given verbatim from the Journal of August 3, 1886. (See Journal, 1, 49, pp. 2486, 2514, 2515.)

Mr. Willis, as a privileged question, from the committee of conference upon the disagreeing votes of the two houses upon the amendment of the Senate to the bill of the House No. 7480 (river and harbor appropriation bill), submitted the following report:

Mr. Springer made the point of order that the said report was not in order for the reason that it contained new matter not germane to the bill; and secondly, if held to be germane, must, as new matter, receive its first consideration in a Committee of the Whole.

Mr. Hepburn made the further point of order that under clause 3 of RULE XXIII the said report must receive its first consideration in a Committee of the Whole, for the reason that it contained entirely new and distinct propositions not considered by the House, each involving appropriations of money.

The Speaker overruled the first point of order on the ground that, although the Senate had amended the House bill by striking out all after the enacting clause, and inserting a different proposition in some respects yet having the same object in view, the question presented was not whether the provisions excepted to in the conference report were germane to the original House bill, but whether they were germane to the Senate amendment. In the opinion of the Chair, they were clearly germane; for though different from the provisions contained in such amendment, they related directly to the same subjects, and under the common parliamentary law and practice might be made, by way of amendment, a substantially different proposition from that originally passed by the House.

The Speaker overruled the second point of order on the ground that the unbroken practice of the House had been to consider conference reports as questions of the highest privilege, and as possessing peculiar qualities, such, for instance, as not being amendable or divisible, and which could not be laid on the table as other propositions. The main object of committing a proposition to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union was to afford the widest latitude for amendment and debate, and as a conference report could not be amended in the House it could not be sent to the Committee of the Whole for that purpose, but in all respects must be treated as an entirety, and adopted or rejected by a single vote.

While the question of recommitment of a conference report has been occasionally suggested and discussed, no decision by the Chair was ever made until the 2d session 49th Congress.

The question being on agreeing to the report of the committee of conference on the bill of the Senate (S. 1532) to regulate commerce, Mr. Dunham moved to recommit the said report to the committee of conference.

Mr. Hammond made the point of order that the said motion was not in order.

Speaker Carlisle sustained the said point of order on the ground that the motion to recommit was to the entire committee (including the conferrees on the part of the Senate); which said motion could not be executed for the reason that the said committee was no longer in existence. As a matter of official record the committee had agreed upon a report, which had been adopted by the Senate, had been submitted in the House, and was now under consideration. Under general parliamentary law such action—as in the case of a select committee-had the effect of dissolving the conference committee, and it could only be revived by appointment as originally constituted. The Chair was not aware of any parliamentary law or practice which authorized the recommitment of a conference report. The consideration of such reports was governed by different rules from all other legislative proceedings of the House. They could not be amended or divided or laid on the table as other reports, but must be adopted or rejected in their entirety, and such had been the almost unbroken practice of the House. If the report be rejected by the House, that would open the whole question to further conference, or such other action as the House might choose to take. For these reasons the Chair held the motion to recommit out of order. "The request of a conference must always be by the house which is possessed of the papers.”—Manual, p. 176.

"In all cases of conference asked after a vote of disagreement, etc., the conferrees of the house asking it are to leave the papers with the conferrees of the other.”—Manual, p. 176. And of course the report must be first made to the house agreeing to the conference.

See case when conference report was not received.—Journal, 1, 42, pp. 190, 191.

CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS.

(See SECRET SESSION.)

CONGRESS.

(See MEETING OF CONGRESS.)

(See SESSIONS OF CONGRESS.)

CONGRESSIONAL CEMETERY.

By the act of May 12, 1876 (Sess. Laws, 1, 44, p. 54), it is provided:

That hereafter, whenever any deceased Senator or member of the House of Representatives shall be actually interred in the Congressional Cemetery, so called, it shall be the duty of the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate

in the case of a Senator, and of the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives, in the case of a member of the House, to have a monument erected, of granite, with suitable inscriptions, and the cost of the same shall be a charge upon and paid out either from the contingent funds of the Senate or the House of Representatives, to whichever the deceased may have belonged, and any existing omissions of monuments or inscriptions, as aforesaid, are hereby directed and authorized to be supplied in like manner; and all laws upon the subject of monuments in the Congressional Cemetery are hereby repealed.

CONGRESSIONAL DEBATES.

Table showing the contents of the several volumes comprising the Congressional

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1825-1826
1828
1826-1827
1827-1828
1828
1828-1829

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1829-1830
1830
1830-1831

1

Volume 8, part 1.

1

Volume 8, part 2..

1

Volume 8, part 3.

22

2

22

2

22

2

Volume 9, part 1
Volume 9, part 1..... 1832-1833
Volume 9, part 2

Mar. 4, 1825, to Mar. 9, 1825
Dec. 5, 1825, to Mar. 13, 1826
Mar. 13, 1826, to May 26, 1826
Dec. 4, 1826, to Mar. 3, 1827
Dec. 23, 1827, to Feb. 27, 1828
Feb. 27, 1828, to May 26, 1828
Dec. 1, 1828, to Mar. 3, 1829
Mar. 4, 1829, to Mar. 17, 1829
Dec. 7, 1829, to Mar. 24, 1830
Mar. 24, 1830, to May 31, 1830
Dec. 6, 1830, to Mar. 2, 1831
1831-1832 Dec. 5, 1831, to July 16, 1832
1831-1832 Dec. 5, 1831, to May 9, 1832
1832
1832-1833

Senate.

House.

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1

1

1833
Volume 10, pa t 1..... 1873-1834
Volume 10, part 2
Volume 10, part 2.

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1834

1833-1834

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