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.
258. It is usual in all deliberative assemblies, to take the preliminary (sometimes, also, the intermediate) measures, and to prepare matters to be acted upon, in the assembly, by means of committees, composed either of members specially selected for the particular occasion, or appointed beforehand for all matters of the same nature.
259. Committees of the first kind are usually called _select_, the others _standing_; though the former appellation belongs with equal propriety to both, in order to distinguish them from another form of committee, constituted either for a particular occasion, or for all cases of a certain kind, which is composed of all the members of the assembly, and therefore denominated a _committee of the whole_.