Note 3 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Note 3. Page 87.
For this purpose each party, attended by their counsel, agents, and political friends, immediately withdrew to separate rooms, to fix upon the eleven names which they would strike off. Having done this, they met in a third room, before an officer of the House; and struck off name by name alternately, till the thirty-three were reduced to eleven.—This process was called "Knocking out the brains of the Committee:" for as each party's object was to get rid of a decided and known political opponent, the abler and more eminent he was, the greater the necessity for getting rid of him. Those left were the more obscure members of the House.