Page:Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies (1876).djvu/11



A work on parliamentary law has long been needed, based, in its general principles, upon the rules and practice of Congress, but adapted, in its details, to the use of ordinary societies. Such a work should give not only the methods of organizing and conducting meetings, the duties of officers and names of ordinary motions, but should also state systematically in reference to each motion, its object and effect; whether it can be amended or debated; if debatable, the extent to which it opens the main question to debate; the circumstances under which it can be made, and what other motions can be made while is is pending. This Manual has been prepared with a hope of supplying the above information in a condensed and systematic form, each rule in Part I either being complete in itself, or giving references to every section that in any way qualifies it, so that a stranger to the work can refer to any special subject with safety.

A Table of Rules is placed immediately before this Preface, which will enable a presiding officer to decide some two hundred common and important questions of parliamentary law without turning a page.

The Second Part is a simple explanation of the common methods of conducting business in ordinary meetings. The motions are classified here according to their uses, and those used for a similar purpose are compared with each other. This part is intended for that large class in every community who are alimost wholly unacquainted with parliamentary usages and are not able to devote much study to the subject, but would be glad with little labor to learn enough to