Here then are three kinds of majorities. 1.  Of the people. 2.  Of the States. 3.  Of the Congress.  Each of which is entrusted to a certain length.

Though the paragraph in question be clumsily expressed, yet it strictly announces its own intentions.  It defines with precision, the greater questions, for which nine votes shall be requisite.  In the lesser questions, it then requires a majority of the United States in Congress assembled:  a term which will apply either to the number seven, as being a majority of the States, or to the number four, as being a majority of Congress.  Which of the two kinds of majority was meant.  Clearly that which would leave a still smaller kind for the decision of the question of adjournment.  The contrary construction would be absurd.

This paragraph, therefore, should be understood as if it had been expressed in the following terms.  ’The United States in Congress assembled, shall never engage in war, &c. but with the consent of nine States:  nor determine any other question, but with the consent of a majority of the whole States, except the question of adjournment from day to day, which may be determined by a majority of the States actually present in Congress.’

2.  How far is it permitted to bring on the reconsideration of a question which Congress has once determined?

The first Congress which met being composed mostly of persons who had been members of the legislatures of their respective States, it was natural for them to adopt those rules in their proceedings, to which they had been accustomed in their legislative houses; and the more so, as these happened to be nearly the same, as having been copied from the same original, those of the British parliament.  One of those rules of proceeding was, that ’a question once determined cannot be proposed a second time in the same session.’  Congress, during their first session in the autumn of 1774, observed this rule strictly.  But before their meeting in the spring of the following year, the war had broken out.  They found themselves at the head of that war, in an executive as well as legislative capacity.  They found that a rule, wise and necessary for a legislative body, did not suit an executive one, which, being governed by events, must change their purposes as those change.  Besides, their session was then to become of equal duration with the war; and a rule, which should render their legislation immutable during all that period, could not be submitted to.  They, therefore, renounced it in practice, and have ever since continued to reconsider their questions freely.  The only restraint, as yet provided against the abuse of this permission to reconsider, is, that when a question has been decided, it cannot be proposed for reconsideration, but by some one who voted in favor of the former decision, and declares that he has since changed his opinion.  I do not recollect accurately enough, whether it be necessary that his vote should have decided that of his State, and the vote of his State have decided that of Congress.