Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies/Preface
PREFACE.
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 enable them to take part in meetings of deliberative assemblies without fear of being out of order.
The Third Part contains some useful information, including the legal rights of assemblies, call of the house, etc.
The object of Rules of Order is to assist an assembly to accomplish the work for which it was designed, in the best possible manner. To do this it is necessary to restrain the individual somewhat, as the right of an individual in any community, to do what he pleases, is incompatible with the interests of the whole. Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty. Experience has shown the importance of definiteness in the law; and in this country, where customs are so slightly established and the published manuals of parliamentary practice so conflicting, no society should attempt to conduct business without having adopted some work upon the subject, as the authority in all cases not covered by their own special rules.
It has been well said by one of the greatest of English writers on parliamentary law: “Whether these forms be in all cases the most rational or not is really not of so great importance. It is much more material that there should be a rule to go by, than what that rule is, that there may be a uniformity of proceeding in business, not subject to the caprice of the chairman, or captiousness of the members. It is very material that order, decency and regularity be preserved in a dignified public body.”
H. M. R.