127. On a motion to amend, by striking out certain words and inserting others, the manner of stating the question is first to read the whole passage to be amended, as it stands; then the words proposed to be struck out; next those to be inserted; and, lastly, the whole passage as it will stand when amended.
Sect. IX. Amendments changing the Nature of a Question.
128. The term amendment is in strictness applicable only to those changes of a proposition, by which it is improved, that is, rendered more effectual for the purpose which it has in view, or made to express more clearly and definitely the sense which it is intended to express. Hence it seems proper, that those only should undertake to amend a proposition, who are friendly to it; but this is by no means the rule; when a proposition is regularly moved and seconded, it is in the possession of the assembly, and cannot be withdrawn but by its leave; it has then become the basis of the future proceedings of the assembly, and may be put into any shape, and turned to any purpose, that the assembly may think proper.
129. It is consequently allowable to amend a proposition in such a manner as entirely to alter its nature, and to make it bear a sense different from what it was originally intended to bear; so that the friends of it, as it was first introduced, may themselves be forced to vote against it, in its amended form.
130. This mode of proceeding is sometimes adopted for the purpose of defeating a proposition, by compelling its original friends to unite with those who are opposed to it, in voting for its rejection. Thus, in the British Houses of Commons, Jan. 29, 1765, a resolution being moved, “That a general warrant for apprehending the authors, printers, or publishers of a libel, together with their papers, is not warranted by law, and is an high violation of the liberty of the subject:”—it was moved to amend this motion by prefixing the following paragraph, namely: “That in the particular case of libels, it is proper and necessary to fix, by a vote of this house only, what ought to be deemed the law in respect of general warrants; and, for that purpose, at the time when the determination of the legality of such warrants, in the instance of a most seditious and treasonable libel, is actually depending before the courts of law, for this house to declare”—_that a general warrant for apprehending the authors, printers, or publishers of a libel together with their papers, is not warranted by law, and is an high violation of the liberty of the subject._ The amendment was adopted, after a long debate, and then the resolution as amended was immediately rejected without a division.[17]