Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, for the Years ...

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Page 37 - And whether these forms be in all cases the most rational or not, is really not of so great importance. It is much more material that there should be a rule to go by, than what that rule is...
Page 41 - It is highly expedient, says Hatsell, for the due preservation of the privileges of the separate branches of the legislature, that neither should encroach on the other, or interfere in any matter depending before them, so as to preclude, or even influence that freedom of debate, which is essential to a free council.
Page 76 - On either motion amendments to the amendment may be proposed, eg if it be moved to disagree, those who are for the amendment have a right to propose amendments, and to make it as perfect as they can, before the question of disagreeing is put. 3d. To recede. You may then either insist or adhere.
Page 76 - Thus the negative of striking out amounts to the affirmative of agreeing; and therefore to put a question on agreeing after that on striking out, would be to put the same question in effect twice over. Not so in questions of amendments between the two houses. A motion to recede being negatived, does not amount to a positive vote to insist, because there is another alternative, to wit, to adhere. A bill originating in one house is passed by the other with an amendment. A motion in the originating...
Page 70 - PREVIOUS QUESTION. When any question is before the House, any member may move a previous question, " Whether that question (called the main question) shall now be put...
Page 85 - 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.
Page 66 - ... would be done by an indefinite postponement, 4. When the House has something else which claims its present attention, but would be willing to reserve in their power to take up a proposition whenever it shall suit them, they order it to lie on their table. It may then be called for at any time.
Page 60 - ... unamended. But if it be a paper referred to them, they proceed to put questions of amendment, if proposed, but no final question on the whole ; because all parts of the paper having been adopted by the House, stand, of course, unless altered, or struck out by a vote. Even if they are opposed to the whole paper, and think it cannot be made good by amendments, they cannot reject it, but must report it back to the House without amendments, and there make their opposition.
Page 36 - Commons, used to say it was a maxim he had often heard when he was a young man, from old and experienced members, that nothing tended more to throw power into the hands of administration, and those who acted with the majority of the House of Commons, than a neglect of, or departure from, the rules of proceeding; that these forms, as instituted by our ancestors, operated as a check and control on the actions of the majority, and that they were, in many instances, a shelter and protection to the minority...
Page 37 - Parliament, from small and obscure beginnings, have been advancing for centuries with a firm and never yielding pace. Claims seem to have been brought forward from time to time, and repeated, till some example of their admission enabled them to build law on that example. We can only, therefore, state the points of progression at which they now are.

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