To force a bill out of committee a/an blank petition must be signed by majority of the representatives

That is, in the years when there were Congressmen to be elected he must go twice to be registered—once for the ... Our committee struck out from it everything that did not bear directly on elections; mitigated the severity of the ... This was the famous force bill, and the whole of it—a provision that, if a sufficient petition were made to the court for ... So a conference of Republicans was held at which an agreement was made, which I drew up, and signed by a majority of the entire Senate

The tried to make the government smaller by making the government smaller