Page:Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies (1876).djvu/86

86 the assembly in determining the question, is allowed, to a limited extent, even though the question before the assembly is undebatable.

—The English common parliamentary law makes all motions debatable, unless there is a rule adopted limiting debate Cushing’s Manual, § 330]; but every assembly is obliged to restrict debate upon certain motions. The restrictions to debate prescribed in this section conform to the practice of Congress, where, however, it is very common to allow of brief remarks upon the most undebatable questions, sometimes five or six members speaking. This, of course, is allowed only when no one objects.

By examining the above list it will be found that, while free debate is allowed upon every principal question [§ 6], it is permitted or prohibited upon other questions in accordance with the following principles:

(a) Highly privileged questions, as a rule, should not be debated, as in that case they could be used to prevent the assembly from coming to a vote on the main question (for instance, if the motion to adjourn were debatable, it could be used [see § 11] in a way to greatly hinder business). High privilege is, as a rule, incompatible with the right of debate on the privileged question.

(b) A motion that has the effect to suppress a question before the assembly, so that it cannot again be taken up that session [§ 42], allows of free debate; and a Subsidiary Motion [§7, except Commit, which see below,] is debatable to just the extent that it interferes with the right of the assembly to take up the original question at its pleasure.

Illustrations: To “Indefinitely Postpone” [§ 24] a question places it out of the power of the assembly to again take it up during that session, and conse-