JOINT RULES AND ORDERS OF THE TWO HOUSES. 1. In every case of an amendment of a bill agreed to in one House, and dissented to in the other, if either House shall request a conference, and appoint a committee for that purpose, and the other House shall also appoint a committee to confer, such committee shall, at a convenient hour, to be agreed on by their chairman, meet in the conference chamber, and state to each other, verbally or in writing, as either shall choose, the reasons of their respective Houses for and against the amendment, and confer freely thereon. 2. When a message shall be sent from the Senate to the House of Rep resentatives, it shall be announced at the door of the House by the Doorkeeper, and shall be respectfully communicated to the Chair by the person by whom it may be sent. 3. The same ceremony shall be observed when a message shall be sent from the House of Representatives to the Senate. 4. Messages shall be sent by such persons as a sense of propriety in each House may determine to be proper. 5. While bills are on their passage between the two Houses, they shall be on paper, and under the signature of the Secretary or Clerk of each House respectively. 6. After a bill shall have passed both Houses, it shall be duly enrolled on parchment by the Clerk of the House of Representatives, or the Secretary of the Senate, as the bill may have originated in the one or the other House, before it shall be presented to the President of the United States. 7. When bills are enrolled, they shall be examined by a joint committee of two from the Senate and two from the House of Representatives, appointed as a standing committee for that purpose, who shall carefully compare the enrolment with the engrossed bills as passed in the two Houses, and, correcting any errors that may be discovered in the enrolled bills, make their report forthwith to their respective Houses. 8. After examination and report, each bill shall be signed in the respective Houses, first by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, then by the President of the Senate. 9. After a bill shall have been thus signed in each House, it shall be presented, by the said committee, to the President of the United States for his approbation, (it being first endorsed on the back of the roll, certifying in which House the same originated; which endorsement shall be signed by the Secretary or Clerk [as the case may be] of the House in which the same did originate,) and shall be entered on the Journal of each House. The said committee shall report the day of presentation to the President; which time shall also be carefully entered on the Journal of each House. 10. All orders, resolutions, and votes, which are to be presented to the President of the United States for his approbation, shall also, in the same manner, be previously enrolled, examined, and signed; and shall be presented in the same manner, and by the same committee, as provided in the cases of bills. 11. When the Senate and House of Representatives shall judge it pro per to make a joint address to the President, it shall be presented to him in his audience chamber by the President of the Senate, in the presence of the Speaker and both Houses. 12. When a bill or resolution which shall have passed in one House is rejected in the other, notice thereof shall be given to the House in which the same shall have passed. 13. When a bill or resolution which has been passed in one House shall be rejected in the other, it shall not be brought in during the same session, without a notice of ten days, and leave of two-thirds of that House in which it shall be renewed. 14. Each House shall transmit to the other all papers on which any bill or resolution shall be founded. 15. After each House shall have adhered to their disagreement, a bill or resolution shall be lost. 16. No bill that shall have passed one House shall be sent for concurrence to the other on either of the three last days of the session. 17. No bill or resolution that shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall be presented to the President of the United States for his approbation on the last day of the session. 18. When bills which have passed one House are ordered to be printed in the other, a greater number of copies shall not be printed than may be necessary for the use of the House making the order. 19. No spirituous liquors shall be offered for sale, or exhibited, within the Capitol, or on the public grounds adjacent thereto. QUESTIONS OF ORDER. DECEMBER 14, 1838. Petitions for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the Dis trict of Columbia; for the abolition of the slave trade in the States; and against the annexation of any new State to the Union of these States, whose constitution shall tolerate slavery, were presented by Mr. Calhoun, of Massachusetts, viz: From ladies of South Hadley, in the State of Massachusetts; From sundry male citizens of South Hadley, in the State of Massachusetts; From sundry citizens of Southampton, in the county of Hampshire, in the State of Massachusetts; From sundry citizens of South Wilbraham, in the county of Hampden, in the State of Massachusetts; From sundry women of North Brookfield, in the State of Massachu setts. Mr. Wise objected to receiving these petitions. The Speaker decided that the said petitions were embraced by the order of the House of the 12th instant, which provided "that every petition, memorial, resolution, proposition, or paper, touching or relating in any way, or to any extent whatever, to slavery, as aforesaid, or the abolition thereof, shall, on the presentation thereof, without any further action thereon, be laid upon the table, without being debated, printed, or referred;" and that, on the "presentation" of said petitions, the preliminary question that they be received cannot, under the said order of the 12th instant, be entertained; but that "upon presentation thereof," under the said order, the said petitions would lie on the table. From this decision Mr. Wise took an appeal to the House. And, after debate, The previous question was moved by Mr. Taylor; and, being demanded by a majority of the members present, The said previous question was put, viz: Shall the main question be now put? And passed in the affirmative. The said main question was then put, viz: Shall the decision of the Chair stand as the judgment of the House? Yeas, And passed in the affirmative, Nays, DECEMBER 17, 1838. 186, 6. A motion was made by Mr. Fry, that the rules in relation to the order of business be suspended, for the purpose of affording him an opportunity to move a resolution; which was read, and is as follows, viz: Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to communicate to this House (if not incompatible with the public interest) whether, since the commencement of the present session of Congress, any call has been made upon the Executive department of this Government, by the Governor of Pennsylvania, for an armed force of United States troops and what (official) correspondence, if any, has taken place between him and the Government of said State, in relation to said call; and whether any arms, powder, ball or buckshot, or other munitions of war, have been furnished by the United States to any of the troops in Pennsylvania recently called out by order of the Executive of that State. And on the question, Shall the rules be suspended for the purpose aforesaid? Yeas, 138, It passed in the affirmative, (two-thirds voting therefor,) Nays, 55. The said resolution was then submitted, and again read: when, At the instance of Mr. Cushing, it was modified by the mover, by adding thereto the following: "And whether any officer of the United States instigated or participated in certain late riotous proceedings in the State of Pennsylvania, as alleged in the proclamation of the Governor of said State; and what measures, if any, the President has taken to investigate and punish the said acts; and whether any such officer still remains in the service of the United States." And whilst the question on agreeing to said resolution was under debate, Mr. Naylor was called to order by the Speaker, who decided that his remarks were irrelevant to the question before the Ilouse, and in violation of the rule which declares that a member, in debate, "shall confine himself to the question under debate." Mr. Naylor thereupon took his seat; and objection being made to his proceeding in his speech, A motion was made by Mr. Wise that Mr. Naylor have leave to proceed; And the question being put, it passed in the affirmative. DECEMBER 20, 1838. Mr. John Quincy Adams presented a petition of Jacob Chase and others, legal voters of Hudson, in the county of Hillsborough, in the State of New Hampshire, praying the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and in Florida; to prohibit the slave trade between the States; and that no new State may be admitted into the Union whose constitution tolerates slavery; and, further, that their petition may be referred to a select committee, before whom they may be heard in person or by counsel. Mr. Adams moved that so much of said petition as prays that the petitioners may be heard in person or by counsel may be granted. The Speaker decided that the said motion was not in order, and that the petition was embraced in the order of the House of the 12th instant, which directs" that every petition, memorial, resolution, proposition, or paper, touching or relating in any way, or to any extent whatever, to slavery as aforesaid, or the abolition thereof, shall, on the presentation thereof, without any further action thereon, be laid upon the table without being debated, printed, or referred;" and that said memorial would be laid on the table without further action thereon. From this decision Mr. Adams took an appeal to the House; And the question was put, Shall the decision of the Chair stand as the judgment of the House? And passed in the affirmative, Yeas, 180, S. DECEMBER 20, 1838. Mr. John Quincy Adams presented the undermentioned petitions, which severally pray for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and in the Territories of the United States, and to prohibit the slave trade between the States; and, further, that their petitions may be referred to a select committee, before whom they may be heard in person or by counsel, viz: From Silas Morton and $7 other male and female inhabitants of Otisfield and Raymond, in the county of Cumberland, in the State of Maine. From S. Marsh and other inhabitants of the town of Enfield, in the county of Tompkins, in the State of New York. From B. S. Halsey and 321 other inhabitants of the town of Ithaca, in the county of Tompkins, in the State of New York. From Spencer Shoemaker and 81 other male and female inhabitants of Horsham township, in the county of Montgomery, in the State of Pennsylvania. From Beta Hotchkiss and 56 other male and female inhabitants of Watertown, in Litchfield county, in the State of Connecticut. From Hannah H. Smith and 300 other women of Glastonbury, in the county of Hartford, in the State of Connecticut. From E. L. Preston and 109 other men and women of the town of Brooklyn, in the county of Windham, in the State of Connecticut. From Benjamin G. Willing and other citizens, male and female, of the town of Milton, in the county of Strafford, in the State of New Hampshire. From Thomas Thatcher and 59 other citizens of the town of Thompson, in the State of Connecticut. From Oliver Hale and 45 other inhabitants of the town of Glastonbury, in the county of Hartford, in the State of Connecticut. From Abby Sanford and other women of East Bridgewater, in the county of Plymouth, in the State of Massachusetts. Mr. Adams, in presenting each of the before-mentioned petitions, moved that so much of said petitions as prays that the petitioners may be heard in person or by counsel, be granted. The Speaker decided that the motion was not in order, and that the petitions were embraced in the order of the House of the 12th instant, which directs "that every petition, memorial, resolution, proposition, or paper, touching or relating in any way, or to any extent whatever, to slavery as aforesaid, or to the abolition thereof, shall, on the presentation thereof, without any further action thereon, be laid on the table, without being debated, printed, or referred;" and that the said petitions would be laid on the table without further action thereon. DECEMBER 22, 1838. The House resumed the consideration of the petition of Abby Sanford and other women of East Bridgewater, in the county of Plymouth, in the |