with him in opinion. He is bound to discharge it, as well by his obligations to the people who have clothed him with his exalted trust as by his oath of office, which he may not disregard. Nor are the obligations of the President in any degree lessened by the prevalence of views different from his own in one or both Houses of Congress. It is not alone hasty and inconsiderate legislation that he is required to check; but if at any time Congress shall, after apparently full deliberation, resolve on measures which he deems subversive of the constitution, or of the vital interests of the country, it is his solemn duty to stand in the breach and resist them. The President is bound to approve, or disapprove, every bill which passes Congress and is presented to him for his signature. The constitution makes this his duty, and he cannot escape it if he would. He has no election. In deciding upon any bill presented to him, he must exercise his own best judgment. If he cannot approve, the constitution commands him to return the bill to the House in which it originated, with his objections; and if he fail to do this within ten days, (Sundays excepted,) it shall become a law without his signature. Right or wrong, he may be overruled by a vote of two-thirds of each house; and, in that event, the bill becomes a law without his sanction. If his objections be not thus overruled, the subject is only postponed, and is referred to the States and the people for their consideration and decision. The President's power is negative merely, and not affirmative. He can enact no law. The only effect, therefore, of his withholding his approval of a bill passed by Congress, is to suffer the existing laws to remain unchanged, and the delay occasioned is only that required to enable the States and the people to consider and act upon the subject in the election of public agents who will carry out their wishes and instructions. Any attempt to Any attempt to coerce the President to yield his sanction to measures which he cannot approve, would be a violation of the spirit of the constitution, palpable and flagrant; and if successful, would break down the independence of the executive department, and make the President, elected by the people, and clothed by the constitution with power to defend their rights, the mere instrument of a majority of Congress. A surrender, on his part, of the powers with which the constitution has invested his office, would effect a practical alteration of that instrument, without resorting to the prescribed process of amendment.

He must

With the motives or considerations which may induce Congress to pass any bill, the President can have nothing to do. presume them to be as pure as his own, and look only to the practical effect of their measures when compared with the constitution or the public good.

But it has been urged by those who object to the exercise of this undoubted constitutional power, that it assails the representative principle and the capacity of the people to govern themselves; that there is greater safety in a numerous representative body than in the single Executive created by the constitution, and that the executive veto is a "one man power;" despotic in its character. To expose the fallacy of this objection, it is only necessary to consider

the frame and true character of our system. Ours is not a consolidated empire, but a confederated Union. The States, before the adoption of the constitution, were co-ordinate, co-equal, and separate independent sovereignties, and by its adoption they did not lose that character. They clothed the federal government with certain powers, and reserved all others, including their own sovereignty, to themselves. They guarded their own rights as States and the rights of the people, by the very limitations which they incorporated into the federal constitution, whereby the different departments of the general government were checks upon each other. That the majority should govern is a general principle, controverted by none; but they must govern according to the constitution, and not according to an undefined and unrestrained discretion, whereby they may oppress the minority.

The people of the United States are not blind to the fact that they may be temporarily misled, and that their representatives, legislative and executive, may be mistaken or influenced in their action by improper motives. They have, therefore, interposed between themselves and the laws which may be passed by their public agents various representations, such as assemblies, senates, and governors in their several States; a House of Representatives, a Senate, and a President of the United States. The people can by their own direct agency make no law; nor can the House of Representatives, immediately elected by them; nor can the Senate; nor can both together, without the concurrence of the President, or a vote of two-thirds of both Houses.

Happily for themselves, the people, in framing our admirable system of government, were conscious of the infirmities of their representatives; and, in delegating to them the power of legislation, they have fenced them around with checks, to guard against the effects of hasty action, of error, of combination, and of possible corruption. Error, selfishness, and faction have often sought to rend asunder this web of checks, and subject the government to the control of fanatic and sinister influences; but, these efforts have only satisfied the people of the wisdom of the checks which they have imposed, and of the necessity of preserving them unimpaired.

The true theory of our system is not to govern by the acts or decrees of any one set of representatives. The constitution interposes checks upon all branches of the government, in order to give time for error to be corrected and delusion to pass away; but if the people settle down into a firm conviction different from that of their representatives, they give effect to their opinions by changing their public servants. The checks which the people imposed on their public servants in the adoption of the constitution, are the best evidence of their capacity for self-government. They know that the men whom they elect to public stations are of like infirmities and passions with themselves, and not to be trusted without being restricted by co-ordinate authorities and constitutional limitations. Who that has witnessed the legislation of Congress for the last thirty years will say that he knows of no instance in which

measures not demanded by the public good have been carried? Who will deny that in the State governments, by combinations .of individuals and sections, in derogation of the general interest, banks have been chartered, systems of internal improvement adopted, and debts entailed upon the people, repressing their growth and impairing their energies for years to come?

After so much experience, it cannot be said that absolute unchecked power is safe in the hands of any one set of representatives, or that the capacity of the people for self-government, which is admitted in its broadest extent, is a conclusive argument to prove the prudence, wisdom, and integrity of their representatives.

The people, by the constitution, have commanded the President, as much as they have commanded the legislative branch of the government, to execute their will. They have said to him in the constitution, which they require he shall take a solemn oath to support, that if Congress pass any bill which he cannot approve, "he shall return it to the House in which it originated, with his objections." In withholding from it his approval and signature, he is executing the will of the people constitutionally expressed, as much as the Congress that passed it. No bill is presumed to be in accordance with the popular will until it shall have passed through all the branches of the government required by the constitution to make it a law. A bill which passes the House of Representatives may be rejected by the Senate; and so a bill passed by the Senate may be rejected by the House. In each case the respective Houses exercise the veto power on the other.

Congress, and each House of Congress, hold, under the constitution, a check upon the President, and he, by the power of the qualified veto, a check upon Congress. When the President recommends measures to Congress, he avows, in the most solemn form, his opinions, gives his voice in their favor, and pledges himself in advance to approve them if passed by Congress. If he acts without due consideration, or has been influenced by improper or corrupt motives-or if from any other cause Congress, or either House of Congress, shall differ with him in opinion, they exercise their veto upon his recommendations, and reject them; and there is no appeal from their decision, but to the people at the ballot box. These are proper checks upon the Executive, wisely interposed by the constitution. None will be found to object to them, or to wish them repealed. It is equally important that the constitutional checks of the Executive upon the legislative branch should be pre

served.

If it be said that the representatives in the popular branch of Congress are chosen directly by the people, it is answered, the people elect the President. If both Houses represent the States and the people, so does the President. The President represents in the executive department the whole people of the United States, s each member of the legislative department represents portions of them.

The doctrine of restriction upon legislative and executive power, while a well settled public opinion is enabled within a reasonable

time to accomplish its ends, has made our country what it is, and has opened to us a career of glory and happiness to which all other nations have been strangers.

In the exercise of the power of the veto, the President is responsible not only to an enlightened public opinion, but to the people of the whole Union, who elected him, as the representatives in the legislative branches, who differ with him in opinion, are responsible to the people of particular States, or districts, who compose their respective constituencies. To deny to the President the exercise of this power, would be to repeal that provision of the constitution which confers it upon him. To charge that its exercise unduly controls the legislative will, is to complain of the constitution itself.

If the Presidential veto be objected to upon the ground that it checks and thwarts the popular will, upon the same principle the equality of representation of the States in the Senate should be stricken out of the constitution. The vote of a senator from Delaware has equal weight in deciding upon the most important measures with the vote of a senator from New York; and yet the one represents a State containing, according to the existing apportionment of representatives in the House of Representatives, but one thirty-fourth part of the population of the other. By the constitutional composition of the Senate, a majority of that body from the smaller States represent less than one-fourth of the people of the Union. There are thirty States; and, under the existing ap-, portionment of representatives, there are two hundred and thirty members in the House of Representatives. Sixteen of the smaller States are represented in that House by but fifty members; and yet the senators from those States constitute a majority of the Senate. So that the President may recommend a measure, to Congress, and it may receive the sanction and approval of more than threefourths of the House of Representatives, and of all the senators from the large States, containing more than three-fourths of the whole population of the United States; and yet the measure may be defeated by the votes of the senators from the smaller States: None, it is presumed, can be found ready to change the organization of the Senate on this account, or to strike that body practically out of existence, by requiring that its action shall be conformed to the will of the more numerous branch.

Upon the same principle that the veto of the President should be practically abolished, the power of the Vice President to give the casting vote upon an equal division of the Senate should be abolished also. The Vice President exercises the veto power as effectually by rejecting a bill by his casting vote as the President does by refusing to approve and sign it. This power has been exercised by the Vice President in a few instances, the most important of which was the rejection of the bill to recharter the bank of the United States in 1811. It may happen that a bill may be passed by a large majority of the House of Representatives, and may be supported by the senators from the larger States, and the Vice President may reject it by giving his vote with the senators

from the smaller States; and yet none, it is presumed, are prepared to deny to him the exercise of this power under the constitution. But it is, in point of fact, untrue that an act passed by Congress is conclusive evidence that it is an emanation of the popular will, A majority of the whole number elected to each House of Congress constitutes a quorum, and a majority of that quorum is competent to pass laws. It might happen that a quorum of the House of Representatives, consisting of a single member more than half of the whole number elected to that House, might pass a bill by a majority of a single vote, and in that case a fraction more than one-fourth of the people of the United States would be represented by those who voted for it. It might happen that the same bill might be passed by a majority of one of a quorum of the Senate, composed of senators from the fifteen smaller States, and a single senator from a sixteenth State, and if the senators voting for it happened to be from the eight of the smallest of these States, it would be passed by the votes of senators from States having but fourteen representatives in the House of Representatives, and containing less than one-sixteenth of the whole population of the United States. This extreme case is stated to illustrate the fact, that the mere passage of a bill by Congress is no conclusive evidence that those who passed it represent the majority of the people of the United States, or truly reflect their will. If such an extreme case is not likely to happen, cases that approximate it are of constant occurrence. It is believed that not a single law has been passed, since the adoption of the constitution, upon which all the members elected to both Houses have been present and voted. Many of the most important acts which have passed Congress have been carried by a close vote in thin Houses. Many instances of this might be given. Indeed, our experience proves that many of the most important acts of Congress are postponed to the last days, and often the last hours of a session, when they are disposed of in haste, and by Houses but little exceeding the number necessary to form a quorum.

Besides, in most of the States, the members of the House of Representatives are chosen by pluralities, and not by majorities of all the voters in their respective districts; and it may happen that a majority of that House may be returned by a less aggregate vote of the people than that received by the minority.

If the principle insisted on be sound, then the constitution should be so changed that no bill shall become a law unless it is voted for by members representing in each House a majority of the whole people of the United States. We must remodel our whole system, strike down and abolish not only the salutary checks lodged in the executive branch, but must strike out and abolish those lodged in the Senate also, and thus practically invest the whole power of the government in a majority of a single assembly-a majority uncontrolled and absolute, and which may become despotic. To conform to this doctrine of the right of majorities to rule, independent of the checks and limitations of the constitution, we must revolutionize our whole system. We must destroy the constitutional com