ment of the United States in a condition of imbecility and weakness, which must in all future time render it impossible to prosecute a foreign war in an enemy's country successfully or to vindicate the national rights and the national honor by war.

75. The Political Implications of the Veto Power *

of the veto

power.

According to the theory of the Constitution as expounded by The original Hamilton, it was the intention of the Framers that the veto purpose should be used to protect the executive from encroachment on his powers by the legislature, and also to prevent hasty and improper legislation. In actual practice, however, the veto has often been used for purely political purposes to further the policies of the executive. The methods employed by President Jackson are described and criticised by Mr. Webster in the following speech, in which he calls attention not only to the regular veto, but also to another kind of negative in form of a flat refusal to execute laws duly passed.'

Mr. President, among the novelties introduced into the govern- The ment by the present administration is the frequent use of the Pres- practice of early Presi ident's negative on acts of Congress. Under former Presidents, dents. this power has been deemed an extraordinary one, to be exercised only in peculiar and marked cases. It was vested in the President, doubtless, as a guard against hasty or inconsiderate legislation, and against any act, inadvertently passed, which might seem to encroach on the just authority of other branches of the government. I do not recollect that, by all General Jackson's predecessors, this power was exercised more than four or five times. Not having recurred to the journals, I cannot, of course, be sure that I am numerically accurate in this particular; but such is my lief. I recollect no instance in the time of Mr. John Adams, Mr. Jefferson, or Mr. John Quincy Adams. The only cases which occur to me are two in General Washington's administration, two in Mr. Madison's, and one in Mr. Monroe's. There may be some others; but we all know that it is a power which has been very

1 For the clause conferring the veto power, see below, p. 217.

be

The silent veto.

How the silent veto is used.

sparingly and reluctantly used from the beginning of the government. The cases, Sir, to which I have now referred, were cases in which the President returned the bill with objections.

The silent veto is, I believe, the exclusive adoption of the present administration. I think, indeed, that some years ago, a bill, by inadvertence or accident, failed to receive the President's signature, and so did not become a law. But I am not aware of any instance, before the present administration, in which the President has, by design, omitted to sign a bill, and yet has not returned it to Congress. But since that administration came into power, the veto, in both kinds, has been repeatedly applied. In the case of the Maysville Road, the Montgomery Road, and the bank, we have had the veto, with reasons. In an internal improvement bill of a former session, in a similar bill at the late session, and in the State interest bill, we have had the silent veto, or refusal without

reasons.

Now, Sir, it is to be considered, that the President has the power of recommending measures to Congress. Through his friends, he may and does oppose, also, any legislative movement which he does not approve. If, in addition to this, he may exercise a silent veto, at his pleasure, on all the bills presented to him during the last ten days of the session; if he may refuse assent to them all, without being called upon to assign any reasons whatever, it will certainly be a great practical augmentation of his power. Any one, who looks at a volume of the statutes, will see that a great portion of the laws are actually passed within the last ten days of each session. If the President is at liberty to negative any or all of these laws, at pleasure, or rather, to refuse to render the bills laws by approving them, and still may neglect to return them to Congress for renewed action, he will hold a very important control over the legislation of this country. The day of adjournment is usually fixed some weeks in advance. This being fixed, a little activity and perseverance may easily, in most cases, and perhaps in all, where no alarm has been excited, postpone important pending measures to a period within ten days of the close of the

session; and this operation subjects all such measures to the discretion of the President, who may sign the bills or not, without being obliged to state his reasons publicly.

practice makes the

supreme.

This practical innovation on the mode of administering the The government, so much at variance with its general principles, and so capable of defeating the most useful acts, deserves public con- President sideration. Its tendency is to disturb the harmony which ought always to exist between Congress and the executive, and to turn that which the Constitution intended only as an extraordinary remedy for extraordinary cases into a common means of making executive discretion paramount to the discretion of Congress, in the enactment of laws.

President refuses to

execute laws duly passed.

Mr. President, the executive has not only used these unaccustomed The means to prevent the passage of laws, but it has also refused to enforce the execution of laws actually passed. An eminent instance of this is found in the course adopted relative to the Indian intercourse law of 1802. Upon being applied to, in behalf of the Missionaries, to execute that law, for their relief and protection, the President replied, that, the State of Georgia having extended her laws over the Indian territory, the laws of Congress had thereby been superseded. This is the substance of his answer, as communicated through the Secretary of War. He holds, then, that the law of the State is paramount to the law of Congress. The Supreme Court has adjudged this act of Georgia to be void, as being repugnant to a constitutional law of the United States. But the President pays no more regard to this decision than to the act of Congress itself. The missionaries remain in prison, held there by a condemnation under a law of a State which the supreme judicial tribunal had pronounced to be null and void. The Supreme Court have decided that the act of Congress is constitutional; that it is a binding statute; that it has the same force as other laws, and is as much entitled to be obeyed and executed as other laws. The President, on the contrary, declares that the law of Congress

1 According to the Constitution any bill not signed by the President fails to become a law if Congress adjourns within ten days of its passage.

The President decides

how far a

has been superseded by the law of the State, and therefore he will not carry its provisions into effect. Now we know, Sir, that the Constitution of the United States declares, that that Constitution, and all acts of Congress passed in pursuance of it, shall be the supreme law of the land, anything in any State law to the contrary notwithstanding. This would seem to be a plain case, then, in which the law should be executed. It has been solemnly decided to be in actual force, by the highest judicial authority; its execution is demanded for the relief of free citizens, now suffering the pains of unjust and unlawful imprisonment; yet the President refuses to execute it.

In the case of the Chicago Road, some sessions ago, the President approved the bill, but accompanied his approval by a message, law is to be saying how far he deemed it a proper law, and how far, therefore, it ought to be carried into execution.

enforced.

Jackson's
theory of

his oath to
support
the Consti-
tution.

The logical effect of this theory.

In the case of the harbor bill of the late session, being applied to by a member of Congress for directions for carrying parts of the law into effect, he declined giving them, and made a distinction between such parts of the law as he should cause to be executed, and such as he should not; and his right to make this distinction has been openly maintained by those who habitually defend his measures. Indeed, Sir, these, and other instances of liberties taken with plain statute laws, flow naturally from the principles expressly avowed by the President, under his own hand. In that important document, Sir, upon which it seems to be his fate to stand or fall before the American people, the veto message, he holds the following language: "Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others."

Mr. President, the general adoption of the sentiments expressed in this sentence would dissolve our government. It would raise every man's private opinions into a standard for his own conduct; and there certainly is, there can be, no government, where every man is to judge for himself of his own rights and his own obligations. Where every one is his own arbiter, force, and not law, is