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EXTRACTS FROM THE OPINIONS OF EMINENT MEN.

The Legislative Guide deserves to be called the politician's and legislator's vade mecum.-Editor of Boston Evening Traveller.

The Legislative Guide is the most complete work of the kind that we have yet seen.-Editor of Boston Courier.

Altogether it is the most complete and satisfactory book on the varied but kindred subjects on which it treats, that has issued from the American press.-Editor of Baltimore Patriot.

The Legislative Guide is the most complete compendium of information upon the subject that has ever been published.-Editor of Philadelphia City Item.

From the Hon. George M. Dallas, late President of the U. S. Senate.-I have read with very great satisfaction the Legislative Guide. It is admirably adapted for popular use, and cannot fail, in a country like ours, which is crowded in all its parts with deliberative bodies, either prescribed by law, or suddenly and spontaneously convening, to be a most convenient Guide for the orderly transaction of public business. It merits, and I hope will receive, extensive diffusion and adoption.

From Millard Fillmore, President of the United States-It will prove a valuable book for reference, not only to public men, but to all who may be called upon to take part in deliberative assemblies.-Washington, May 17th, 1852.

From the Hon. Eli K. Price.-I think the Legislative Guide a book that cannot be too generally diffused.

The Legislative Guide ought to accompany the Bible and the Almanac, and be owned by every family throughout the land.-Editor of Richmond (Va.) Whig.

The Legislative Guide contains, in one volume, a mass of information which could not heretofore be obtained without referring and re-referring to many volumes. The precision, perspicuity and accuracy of the Guide, must soon make it a standard for all deliberative and legislative bodies.-Editor of Richmond (Va.) Enquirer.

This book contains in one volume a mass of information which could not before be obtained without examining many volumes. It contains the best edition of Jefferson's Manual ever published; the English authority is compactly arranged by itself; the foreign phrases translated, and reference made on each page to the portion from which rules have been deduced by Congress. It also contains a form for organizing literary and debating societies, outlines for young debaters, and much other original matter, not to be found in any other work. No library should be without the Legislative Guide, or, as we would call it, the freeman's vade mecum.-Editor of Baltimore Republican.

All the rules are arranged in a practical manner and a perspicuous style.-Editor of Balt. Sun.

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We, the undersigned, teachers in the Public Schools of Pittsburg, have used Burleigh's AmeriTM can Manual with great satisfaction and delight. The plan of the work is in all respects judicious. The marginal exercises are a novel and original feature, and are arranged with great accuracy and discrimination. Their use not only excites the liveliest interest among the pupils, but produces great, salutary, and lasting effects, in arousing the mental powers, and leading the scholars constantly to investigate, reason, and judge for themselves. The Manual is elegantly written, and must have the effect to give a taste to what is pure and lofty in the English lanSigned by B. M. KERR, J. WHITTIER,

guage.

and twenty-three other principals of Public Schools in Pennsylvania.

From the Fredericksburg, Va., Herald. The American Manual possesses a kind of railroad facility in arousing the minds of youth; no one who is entrusted with the education of the rising generation should be ignorant of its contents, or a stranger to its thorough and efficient mode of imparting knowledge. It contains a condensed, lucid, exact, and comprehensive view of our social and political institutions, and ought to be in every family.

From Hon. Wm. Roberts, President of the Bd. Pub. Sch. Com. of Princess Ann Co., Virginia.I consider the American Manual the best book for training the young mind, in the earlier stages of its education, I have ever seen.

Extract of a Letter from Alexander Campbell, D. D., LL. D., President of Bethany College, Virginia.-The American Manual is an admirable text-book for teacher and pupil, on the various important subjects so essential to the American scholar and statesman.

Extract of a Letter from Hon. B. Everett Smith. I doubt whether the ingenuity of man can ever devise a work better adapted to the purpose avowed by the author. I arose from the perusal of the American Manual, more deeply impressed than ever with my responsibility as a citizen, and with the absolute necessity of fostering sound virtue and political morality.

Extract of a Letter from Hon. L. G. Edwards, President of the Board of Public School Commissioners for Norfolk County, Virginia-I consider the American Manual a desideratum which had not before been supplied, and respectfully recommend that it be used generally in every District School in this county.

At a meeting of the Controllers of Public Schools, First District of Pennsylvania, held on Tuesday, Nov. 11th, 1851, the following resolution was adopted :-Resolved, That the "Thinker," by Joseph Bartlett Burleigh, be introduced as a class-book into the Public Schools of this District. ROBERT J. HEMPHILL, Sec.

At a meeting of the Board of School Commissioners for the city of Baltimore, held on Tuesday, 10th February, 1852, the following resolution was unanimously adopted :-Resolved, That the "Thinker," by Joseph Bartlett Burleigh, LL. D., be introduced as a class-book into the Public Schools of Baltimore.

J. W. TILYARD, Clerk Com of Pub. Schools, Baltimore.

PREFACE.

THE right way of conducting the business of any meeting or society, by applying the proper rules, is exceedingly simple and easy to understand.

All rules of order, from the humblest juvenile association to the highest legislative assembly, should have for their basis the same system, wisely arranged in order to secure accuracy in business, economy of time, method, consistency, and equity.

The Legislative proceedings of a monarchy frequently have a tendency to exalt the few, by depressing the many. As the laws enacted by Parliament are not the most congenial to the best interests of a Republic, so neither is the voluminous and complicated system of rules, which best subserve the interests of a kingly legislature, the most suitable for an assembly of freemen, where all have equal rights and equal claims.

The design of this work is to establish a uniform standard of rules, deduced from the regulations of the most exalted deliberative body of the world, for the management of public meetings, of every kind, throughout the Union.

[?] The rules of Congress, like all other human productions, are not perfect, but they have been gradually formed, with the utmost care, to suit the genius of our republican institutions. Some of the most learned and patriotic of the present and the past age have, for a series of years, practically tested the working of each rule through every phase of legislation. Hence if any forms can command universal respect and confidence it must be those for conducting business in the Congress of the United States.

[8] The American people are pre-eminently remarkable for associations and societies of every description, the object of which is to promote improvement in our social relations, in benevolence, in government, in literature, and in piety. Nothing contributes so much to the respectability, dignity, and usefulness of these various convocations, as a regular, uniform, orderly, and methodical mode of conducting business.

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A general knowledge of proper legislative rules always tends to economize time, secure the dispatch of business, and harmonize all the proceedings. Nothing is hazarded in the assertion, that for the want of the timely enforcement of correct uniform rules of order hatred has been engendered, philanthropic movements defeated, and the welfare of the majority sacrificed to aggrandize the few.

"Knowledge is power"-hence the necessity for its general diffusion. The nature of our unequalled social and political institutions presupposes that every citizen takes a part in deliberative meetings of some kind. Whether it be in the school boy's debating club or the collegian's society, the poor man's beneficial association or the banker's corporation, the small meeting at the rustic schoolhouse, or the vast assemblage at the national capitol, a mite society or the highest ecclesiastical convention, the knowledge of a correct uniform mode of conducting business contributes, in the highest degree, to success.

[] The rules here laid down may, by the marginal references, be traced to those of Congress, or to the Constitution of the United States.

[] To restore confidence when doubt prevails, to bestow system when anarchy rules, to give uniformity and accuracy in doing every kind of public business by assembled citizens, to economize time and promote the dignity of legislation in every part of our confederacy, is the object of the Citizens' Manual.

[?] As its name purports, it is designed for the use of every citizen, and should be owned and read by every one who feels an interest in sustaining the dignity of our social compact, in disseminating the blessings of liberty in other countries, and in transmitting the inestimable privileges of a Republican Government to future generations.

The author is indebted to Gen. Packer, late Speaker of the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania, for valuable suggestions, the substance of which are embodied in this edition of the Legislative Guide.

INTRODUCTION.

IN the United States all power is vested in the hands of the people. Every citizen exerts a primary influence that either tends to destroy or perpetuate our social and political institutions. It is universally conceded that general intelligence and sound morality are indispensable safeguards, without which every Republic must be ruined. Europe sends to our shores, on an average, more than a thousand inhabitants for each and every day in every year.

[S] A large majority, of this down trodden population, have arrived at years of maturity without any correct knowledge of a Republican government. Being neither able to read nor write, they seem to have no other idea of liberty than that of unrestrained licentiousness.

[8] Hence they plunge into all manner of vice and dissipation, and hence the poor houses and prisons of all our atlantic cities are filled, with more than two to one, of this class. Ragged and dissipated, having none to enlighten them, they soon grow more callous, and become the sappers instead of the supporters of our glorious institutions.

[8] The quickest, the most effective way to ( 199 )

promote a universal love for knowledge and pure morality, is by enlisting all the people into social meetings for mental and moral culture, by forming various debating, beneficial, literary, and religious societies, each of which, in its proper sphere, tends to engender a spirit of inquiry and a desire for rational pursuits.

[§] Social elevation should occupy the leisure of the whole community, and thereby impart a relish for useful vocations and the true enjoyments of life.

[§] The bitter fruits of monarchy, sent us in the shape of adult pauper population, must be sweetened and rendered serviceable by societies for general improvement, or they will endanger the very existence of our social fabric.

[S] Let a proper literary spirit pervade the land, and on all haunts of dissipation, jails, and prisons, may be written, "To let."

[§] The human mind must have employment. The minister, the lawyer, the physician, the school-master, the merchant, the mechanic, the farmer, and the best educated, should either take the lead or an active part in forming and sustaining debating, literary, and other ennobling societies.

[S] By this means the minds of all may be aroused to the paramount importance of mental culture and rational improvement. Vast multitudes may thus be saved who otherwise would annually become the new supporters of the haunts

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