12. The rules of proceeding, in each State, being of course best known by the citizens of that State, it has sometimes happened in deliberative assemblies, that the proceedings have been conducted not merely according to the general parliamentary law, but also in conformity with the peculiar system of the State in which the assembly was sitting, or of whose citizens it was composed. This, however, is erroneous; as no occasional assembly can ever be subject to any other rules, than those which are of general application, or which it specially adopts for its own government; and the rules adopted and practised upon by a legislative assembly do not thereby acquire the character of general laws.
13. The judgment, opinion, sense, or will of a deliberate assembly is expressed, according to the nature of the subject, either by a resolution, order, or vote. When it commands, it is by an _order_; but facts, principles, its own opinions, or purposes, are most properly expressed in the form of a _resolution_; the term _vote_ may be applied to the result of every question decided by the assembly. In whatever form, however, a question is proposed, or by whatever name it may be called, the mode of proceeding is the same.
14. The judgment or will of any number of persons, considered as an aggregate body, is that which is evidenced by the consent or agreement of the greater number of them; and the only mode by which this can be ascertained, in reference to any particular subject, is for some one of them to begin by submitting to the others a proposition, expressed in such a form of words, that, if assented to by the requisite number, it will purport to express the judgment or will of the assembly. This proposition will then form a basis for the further proceedings of the assembly; to be assented to, rejected, or modified, according as it expresses or not, or may be made to express the sense of a majority of the members. The different proceedings which take place, from the first submission of a proposition, through all the changes it may undergo, until the final decision of the assembly upon it, constitute the subject of the rules of debate and proceeding in deliberative assemblies.