Abstract

The Hour Rule and the Previous Question

In July, 1841, the House of Representatives voted by an immense majority to limit the time allowed each speaker to one hour. This rule, hitherto without a parallel in the history of legislative assemblies, was adopted at a time when the great reaction of 1840 had given to the Whig party a power in the councils of the nation which it had never had before and never after had again. Its members, impatient of discussion; or of anything which threatened the success of' the measures for which they had long been struggling, were found willing or were persuaded to place upon their own debates a restriction which arbitrary authority, dreading, as it does, freedom and fullness of deliberation, has never ventured to impose upon a representative body. Party drill and the influence of U.S. statesman Henry Clay drove through the House a measure which the great Whig leader was unable to force through the Senate.