Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the
Senate shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the
United States. If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return
it with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who
shall enter the objections at large on their Journal and proceed to
reconsider it.
The preservation of the Constitution from infraction is the President's
highest duty. He is bound to discharge that duty at whatever hazard of
incurring the displeasure of those who may differ 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 can
not 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 can not
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
coerce the President to yield his sanction to measures which he can not
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.
With the motives or considerations which may induce Congress to pass any
bill the President can have nothing to do. He must 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 coordinate, 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
coordinate 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 improvements
adopted, and debts entailed upon the people repressing their growth and
impairing their energies for years to come?
After so much experience it can not 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 can not 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 removed. It is equally important that the
constitutional checks of the Executive upon the legislative branch should
be preserved.
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, as 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 apportionment of
Representatives there are 230 Members in the House of Representatives.
Sixteen of the smaller States are represented in that House by but 50
Members, and yet the Senators from these 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 three-fourths 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 compact by which the
several States agreed to form a Federal Union and rush into consolidation,
which must end in monarchy or despotism. No one advocates such a
proposition, and yet the doctrine maintained, if carried out, must lead to
this result.
One great object of the Constitution in conferring upon the President a
qualified negative upon the legislation of Congress was to protect
minorities from injustice and oppression by majorities. The equality of
their representation in the Senate and the veto power of the President are
the constitutional guaranties which the smaller States have that their
rights will be respected. Without these guaranties all their interests
would be at the mercy of majorities in Congress representing the larger
States. To the smaller and weaker States, therefore, the preservation of
this power and its exercise upon proper occasions demanding it is of vital
importance. They ratified the Constitution and entered into the Union,
securing to themselves an equal representation with the larger States in
the Senate; and they agreed to be bound by all laws passed by Congress upon
the express condition, and none other, that they should be approved by the
President or passed, his objections to the contrary notwithstanding, by a
vote of two-thirds of both Houses. Upon this condition they have a right to
insist as a part of the compact to which they gave their assent.
A bill might be passed by Congress against the will of the whole people of
a particular State and against the votes of its Senators and all its
Representatives. However prejudicial it might be to the interests of such
State, it would be bound by it if the President shall approve it or it
shall be passed by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses; but it has a right
to demand that the President shall exercise his constitutional power and
arrest it if his judgment is against it. If he surrender this power, or
fail to exercise it in a case where he can not approve, it would make his
formal approval a mere mockery, and would be itself a violation of the
Constitution, and the dissenting State would become bound by a law which
had not been passed according to the sanctions of the Constitution.
The objection to the exercise of the veto power is founded upon an idea
respecting the popular will, which, if carried out, would annihilate State
sovereignty and substitute for the present Federal Government a
consolidation directed by a supposed numerical majority. A revolution of
the Government would be silently effected and the States would be subjected
to laws to which they had never given their constitutional consent.
The Supreme Court of the United States is invested with the power to
declare, and has declared, acts of Congress passed with the concurrence of
the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the approval of the President
to be unconstitutional and void, and yet none, it is presumed, can be found
who will be disposed to strip this highest judicial tribunal under the
Constitution of this acknowledged power--a power necessary alike to its
independence and the rights of individuals.
For the same reason that the Executive veto should, according to the
doctrine maintained, be rendered nugatory, and be practically expunged from
the Constitution, this power of the court should also be rendered nugatory
and be expunged, because it restrains the legislative and Executive will,
and because the exercise of such a power by the court may be regarded as
being in conflict with the capacity of the people to govern themselves.
Indeed, there is more reason for striking this power of the court from the
Constitution than there is that of the qualified veto of the president,
because the decision of the court is final, and can never be reversed even
though both Houses of Congress and the President should be unanimous in
opposition to it, whereas the veto of the President may be overruled by a
vote of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress or by the people at the
polls.
It is obvious that to preserve the system established by the Constitution
each of the coordinate branches of the Government--the executive,
legislative, and judicial--must be left in the exercise of its appropriate
powers. If the executive or the judicial branch be deprived of powers
conferred upon either as checks on the legislative, the preponderance of
the latter will become disproportionate and absorbing and the others
impotent for the accomplishment of the great objects for which they were
established. Organized, as they are, by the Constitution, they work
together harmoniously for the public good. If the Executive and the
judiciary shall be deprived of the constitutional powers invested in them,
and of their due proportions, the equilibrium of the system must be
destroyed, and consolidation, with the most pernicious results, must
ensue--a consolidation of unchecked, despotic power, exercised by
majorities of the legislative branch.
The executive, legislative, and judicial each constitutes a separate
coordinate department of the Government, and each is independent of the
others. In the performance of their respective duties under the
Constitution neither can in its legitimate action control the others. They
each act upon their several responsibilities in their respective spheres.
But if the doctrines now maintained be correct, the executive must become
practically subordinate to the legislative, and the judiciary must become
subordinate to both the legislative and the executive; and thus the whole
power of the Government would be merged in a single department. Whenever,
if ever, this shall occur, our glorious system of well-regulated
self-government will crumble into ruins, to be succeeded, first by anarchy,
and finally by monarchy or despotism. I am far from believing that this
doctrine is the sentiment of the American people; and during the short
period which remains in which it will be my duty to administer the
executive department it will be my aim to maintain its independence and
discharge its duties without infringing upon the powers or duties of either
of the other departments of the Government.
The power of the Executive veto was exercised by the first and most
illustrious of my predecessors and by four of his successors who preceded
me in the administration of the Government, and it is believed in no
instance prejudicially to the public interests. It has never been and there
is but little danger that it ever can be abused. No President will ever
desire unnecessarily to place his opinion in opposition to that of
Congress. He must always exercise the power reluctantly, and only in cases
where his convictions make it a matter of stern duty, which he can not
escape. Indeed, there is more danger that the President, from the
repugnance he must always feel to come in collision with Congress, may fail
to exercise it in cases where the preservation of the Constitution from
infraction, or the public good, may demand it than that he will ever
exercise it unnecessarily or wantonly.
During the period I have administered the executive department of the
Government great and important questions of public policy, foreign and
domestic, have arisen, upon which it was my duty to act. It may, indeed, be
truly said that my Administration has fallen upon eventful times. I have
felt most sensibly the weight of the high responsibilities devolved upon
me. With no other object than the public good, the enduring fame, and
permanent prosperity of my country, I have pursued the convictions of my
own best judgment. The impartial arbitrament of enlightened public opinion,
present and future, will determine how far the public policy I have
maintained and the measures I have from time to time recommended may have
tended to advance or retard the public prosperity at home and to elevate or
depress the estimate of our national character abroad.
Invoking the blessings of the Almighty upon your deliberations at your
present important session, my ardent hope is that in a spirit of harmony
and concord you may be guided to wise results, and such as may redound to
the happiness, the honor, and the glory of our beloved country.