Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1846-08-22
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
THE VETO POWER AND IT'S pERvERsIoN.

the explanations of its motives and supposed effects,
as set forth in the debates of the Conventions and
in the great commentary of the " Federalist," and
he shall see that the Veto power was given TO the
President, not with the slightest idea of investing
the Executive with any part of the Legislative acu
y or the judicial but for very special and limited
end. II was given TO the end that this department
might, by general negative upon the laws, be able
to secure its own otherwise undelended attributes
from encroachment, whether intended or casual, by
Congressional acts. To preserve the designed adj
justment of coordinate powers was the object not
TO confo,nd them; 10 place i'll the hands of the
President the means of guarding the proper Execu-
tive prerogatives not force which might serve to
invade and subjugae the legislative or the judicial
authority. 1t was meant in short, for passive not
active for defensive not assailant for negative not
positive and for executive not law-making, ends !;
as shield to defend the proper Presidential bust
ness and duties, and not sword with which to
attack the two other great branches of Government
and reduce them to its will. For, as it is one OF
those chief theoretical PROJECTIONS in government
which sages have settled, that power shall be dis
tributed into the three great divisions of Legisla-
rendered incapable Of any function but its own |;
and, as every where we see that this great rule,
essential to free Institutions was constantly the aim
and guide Of the trainers of our Constitution, so
see that the special purpose THAT of checking I'M
constitutional Legislation in general) which is now
set up to justify the President in supervisory and
controlling share in all law-making, is mere as
sumption for to the Judiciary was directly assigned
the power altogether judicial in its nature, of de-
Gliding whether an act of Congress be or be not in
conformity with the Constitution That power the
Executive usurpaion Of latter days has in effect not
only snatched away, so either not to permit the
great disputed questions under the Constitution to
reach the tribunals, else to kill their affirmative
decisions again and again rendered, but it has deli
berately and Systematically turned this arrogated
faculty into an instrument to be used for little but
party and personal and eectioneering and sectional
ends So that this high constitutional faculty,
we have not only not the arbiter designed by our
institutions, but in its stead another, the least fit
that could be to exercise The power. For, besides
any concentration Of Judicial and legislative autho-
rity in the Executive having been the especial hor-
ror Of our frame of government, that department is
in many ways peculiarly incapacitated for such a
trust Its occupant is exposed to too many cor
rupting influences Of power, of popularity, of am
bition, and Of party; is the political and military
head of the nation, not its Legislative judicial is
pulling down the Constitution than in giving GER
tainty and safety to ether Is temporary officer,
instead Of being las it is SO well settled that Judge
should be) one made independent by length and
security of tenure and, finally, chosen for mere
general and often casual popularity, gets his place
with very little reference his 6tnass decide for
the time, in effect without appeal, on such high
questions.
Nor should we, as to the assumption which we
are now examining, forget the history of its rise
into not an occasional and unwilling resort but a
substantive power, on the watch to strike or TO
intimidate with advantage, and thus actively con-
trolling legislation or moving popularity, for Execu-
tive ends. Had its frequent employment been be-
gun by those earlier Presidents, eminent for their
civil knowledge, whom their abilities and their par
fcipation in the founding of our constitutional guar
antics marked oui as signally qualified to enforce
them, the sei-erected faculty might have been more
respectable. But who they that have set up
this dangerous novelty, and made it as familiar as it
IS formidable! Its great author was man surely
not very particularly versed in laws and constiu-
tons, if he had been ever so solicitous of So
berly observing them. The civilian of whom, it is
well recollected, the Richmond Enquirer pronounc-
ed that if elected to the Presidency, he who was
unfit TO interpret any law would be called on to ad
minister all, was the great institution of this Veto
power, sometimes using it directly, sometimes by
indirection refusing to return bills sent to him.
without care except that it should answer his own
ends Him, school of successors not quite as
bold nor as lawless, but whom his example has an
mated TO the same practices, has followed in an
abuse, which is really becoming SO dominant part
of our institutions that it threatens gradually to
erect what should in reality be, in all laws not
affecting the Executive powers, his affesfafion
to statutes, into the arbitrary and exclusive posses
sion of vast judicial and of all legislative power
whatever.
Treating, in his Answer to King CHARLES, of a
like assumption Of the Veto power, long since
wrested from their monarchs by the English peo-
pie, MnToN employs the following bold and beau
tul words, surely not less fit to be uttered TO Re-
publicans than to be addressed to the subjects of
King
"'The conclusion, then. must be quite contrary
70 what he concludes that nothing can be more
m n u - r