Answer: The regular methods of voting in such bodies are a voice vote, a rising vote, and a show of hands. Additional forms of voting include a recorded vote and balloting. The assembly could decide on the voting method by adopting a motion on it. Different legislatures may have their voting methods.
I fully approve the idea of creating a legislative branch with two houses. First if we'd had only one house how would the states have been represented? By population? In that case the states with the largest populations would have all legislated solely in their benefit and often to the detriment of the states with smaller populations. Ok so we create a legislative branch with one house based only on equal representation of each state right? But the problem here is representation would then be of the state but we the people for of and by whom the government was being formed would have no direct voice in the legislative branch. A government that is directly responsive only to the people can devolve into rule by the mob such as we saw happen in France following their revolution. They had a unicameral legislative government the house of deputies and it was directly responsive to the people giving way to rule by the mob and the horrors that bred the reign of terror with thousands of people beheaded including children accused of being counter revolutionaries. There was no senior house to temper if you will the will of the people or take a longer view if you will of whats best for the nation as a whole. Our House of Representatives is suppose to be more parochial in its view they represent our will (or rather they are suppose to) the Senate is given a longer term and originally they were not elected by the people of their states but rather depending on the state either elected by the state's legislative branches or directly appointed by the state's Governor. US Senators as that house was originally constituted were suppose to be somewhat more independent from the people although not completely independent because they worked for the state not the people but the people to whom they were accountable were elected by the people of the state. During President Wilson's term in office he pushed for and got an amendment that made the US Senate (to his way of thinking more democratic). I personally think it reduced the US Senate to being more political by making the Senators more directly accountable to the people. More democracy is not always desirable as we can see from the experience of France and her reign of terror.
I read a biography of John Adams this past summer. John Adams was the man who first pushed for a written Declaration of Independence and then after the Revolutionary War was over and he was a commissioner/ambassador from the United States to France and then England while the United States was operating and failing rapidly under the Articles of Confederation he pushed very hard for a bicameral legislative branch so the will of the people could be balanced by the long term good of the nation in the Senate. He was excoriated by Thomas Jefferson whom he'd been friends with if Jefferson ever really had friends for using the English parliment as his model for a legislative branch of government. Jefferson was in love with everything French and only disavowed the French Revolution long after the horrors of madame le gillotine and the reign of terror made it clear that the will of the mob needed to be tempered by cooler more rational minds who yes tended to be more conservative in their actions.
I come from West Virginia we have barely 3 million citizens. We have three congressional representatives. New York for example has what forty six congressional representatives how could we feel comfortable knowing that we depend soley on the good will of larger states when questions before congress are being decided by large states only and the consequences of those decisions might fall soley upon the smaller states simply because they have essentially no voice in congress because of their small congressional delegations? A bicameral government not only protects the nation from being whipsawed by a very parochial house of representatives but the small states are protected at least somewhat each state being equally represented in the US Senate which is charged with being more concerned with what is best for the country than they are about what may be temporarily best for the citizens in their own states.
Answer:
a type of shield used by union troops
