Note Return to text — Chapter IX · OF MOTIONS TO AMEND.

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.[Footnote 17]