Committee
one or more persons elected or deputed to examine, consider and report on any matter of business. solves itself into a committee to consider any bill or matter, in which case the speaker leaves the chair, which is taken by one of the members, called the Chairman of Committee. While in committee a member is allowed to speak more than once on any point.
The Committee of Public Safety; a rendering of the French term, Comité de Salut public, the name given to a committee of members of the French National Convention during the first revolution. When the National Convention, about the end of 1792, abolished monarchy and proclaimed a republic, it divided the executive government among several committees, paramount over which was the Committee of Public Safety, appointed on April 6, 1793. It was the rule of this tyrannical and sanguinary committee which is known as the Reign of Terror. Robespierre was its animating spirit, next to whom stood Couthon and St. Just. In March, 1871, the Communists established a similar committee in Paris, which fell in May of the same year.
National Committee, a body vested with control of a political party in the United States with special reference to a Presidential election.