understood as if it had been
expressed in the following terms. 'The United States in Congress
assembled, shall never engage in war, &c. but with the consent of nine
States: nor determine any other question, but with the consent of a
majority of the whole States, except the question of adjournment from
day to day, which may be determined by a majority of the States actually
present in Congress.'

2. How far is it permitted to bring on the reconsideration of a question
which Congress has once determined?

The first Congress which met being composed mostly of persons who had
been members of the legislatures of their respective States, it was
natural for them to adopt those rules in their proceedings, to which
they had been accustomed in their legislative houses; and the more so,
as these happened to be nearly the same, as having been copied from the
same original, those of the British parliament. One of those rules of
proceeding was, that 'a question once determined cannot be proposed a
second time in the same session.' Congress, during their first session
in the autumn of 1774, observed this rule strictly. But before their
meeting in the spring of the following year, the war had broken out.
They found themselves at the head of that war, in an executive as well
as legislative capacity. They found that a rule, wise and necessary for
a legislative body, did not suit an executive one, which, being governed
by events, must change their purposes as those change. Besides, their
session was then to become of equal duration with the war; and a rule,
which should render their legislation immutable during all that period,
could not be submitted to. They, therefore, renounced it in practice,
and have ever since continued to reconsider their questions freely. The
only restraint, as yet provided against the abuse of this permission
to reconsider, is, that when a question has been decided, it cannot be
proposed for reconsideration, but by some one who voted in favor of the
former decision, and declares that he has since changed his opinion.
I do not recollect accurately enough, whether it be necessary that his
vote should have decided that of his State, and the vote of his State
have decided that of Congress.

Perhaps it might have been better, when they were forming the federal
constitution, to have assimilated it as much as possible to the
particular constitutions of the States. All of these have distributed
the legislative, exe