Veto

“ In such circumstances, when all the personal influence, the official patronage, and the reasoning which accompanied the veto, were added to the substantial weight of the veto itself, every man acquainted with human nature would be ready to admit, that if nothing could set it aside but a vote of two thirds in both houses, it might as well have been made absolute at once. ”

“ On all leading questions agitating the public mind I will always express my views to Congress and urge them according to my judgment, and when I think it advisable will exercise the constitutional privilege of interposing a veto to defeat measures which I oppose ”

“ The wisdom of establishing this veto power by the constitution is thus manifest.
3. It is wrong to apply the term veto to what is merely the negative side of the sanctioning of the laws, in other words, an act of sovereignty. It would not be in accordance with the nature of a constitutional monarchy to declare the monarch's consent to a law unnecessary, or make it a compulsory duty; the legislative power is divided between him and the chambers. The sovereign must therefore be perfectly at liberty to say “yes” or “no” in each single case according to his opinion. ”

“ But the veto power, as it stands in the Constitution, goes far beyond this object. It is, in effect, a power in the executive department to forbid all action in any other. It is true that, notwithstanding the veto of the President, a law may still be passed, provided two-thirds of each house of congress agree therein; but it is obvious that the cases are very rare, in which such concurrence could be expected. In cases of plain necessity or policy the veto would not be applied; and those of doubtful necessity or policy would rarely be carried by a majority so large as two-thirds of each house. ”

“ They were probably sent on account of a marginal suggestion of inconsistency between language held by me in the Convention with regard to the Executive veto, and the use made of the power by myself, when in the Executive Administration. [2] The inconsistency is done away by the distinction, not adverted to, between an absolute veto, to which the language was applied, and the qualified veto which was exercised. ”

“ We can hardly assume that a President would invite further congressional action by a return of a bill with his veto to a secretary or other officer of the House concerned, during its adjournment, if, by retention of the bill without signing, he could make the veto absolute. ”

“ In the case of laws, the correct time for interposing the veto seems to have been the moment when the introductory acts of the magistrate were over and before the voting had commenced; [778] in elections we find the tribune interceding after the first tribe had voted. [779]
(iii.) The intercession against a decree of the Senate (senatus consultum) was in theory a veto of the magistrate’s decree on which he had taken advice. It resided originally with the par majorve potestas. ”

“ But the infatuation of the nobles now for the second time prevented this most salutary check upon hasty legislation.
The next question to be decided was the royal veto. All were united that the laws should be presented to the king for his sanction or refusal. The only question was whether the veto should be absolute or limited. That of the King of England is absolute. That of the President of the United States is limited. All France was agitated by this question. Here the aristocracy made their last desperate stand and fought fiercely. ”

“ No bill, resolution, order, or vote, partaking of the nature of a law, can be adopted without their concurring assent: so that each house has a veto on the other, in all matters of legislation. In the executive they are differently blended. ”

“ Depriving the curiæ of a veto was a measure equivalent to a proposition that the measures of the House of Commons should not require the concurrence of the House of Lords; and giving the force of law to a plebiscitum was much the same thing as determining that every resolution of every public meeting should at once be embodied in the statute-book. Such an arrangement in the present day would render our laws a curiosity of legislative mosaic work, laid down without the advantage of uniformity or design. ”

“ The framers of the Constitution intended that the veto power should be a check, though not an absolute one, upon hasty or unwise legislation. The President may cause a bill to fail by neither signing nor vetoing it during the last ten days of a session. ”

“ The king's veto finds itself, from the very nature of things, almost entirely blunted in affairs of execution; rarely can it take place in matters relative to war. You parry this inconvenience; you reestablish the superintendency, the reciprocal control, which the Constitution has provided, in imposing upon the two delegates of the nation, her removable representatives and her unremovable representative, the mutual duty of coinciding when the question is upon war. ”

“ There is to-day no constitutional government in whose organization the veto power is not found in some form; in the great majority of modern governments the veto power occupies a most prominent place.
The modern veto power has departed far from that of the Roman tribune, both in practice and theory. The veto power of the latter was merely a check upon power; the modern veto power is both a check upon power and a positive power in the hands of the official to whom it is given. ”

“ On the contrary, they wrap up their veto in a protective veil of adjectives such as "arbitrary," "artificial," "normal," "reasonable," "inherent," "fundamental," or "essential," whose office usually, though quite innocently, is to disguise what they are doing and impute to it a derivation far more impressive than their personal preferences, which are all that, in fact, lie behind the decision. ”

“ The constituent assembly of France conferred the veto power on the king in 1789, but the very first exercise of it proved his ruin. It was preposterous for such a body, and at such a time, to make such a provision in the constitution they were then passing, and as affairs then stood, when judicious temporizing, and not royal prerogative, was required. ”

“ The power given by the veto is a high conservative power, but, in my opinion, should never be exercised, except in cases of clear violation of the Constitution, or manifest haste and want of consideration by Congress. ”

“ A president, who might hesitate to defeat a law by an absolute veto, might feel little scruple to return it for reconsideration upon reasons and arguments suggested on the return. If these were satisfactory to the legislature, he would have the cheering support of a respectable portion of the body in justification of his conduct. ”

“ The Government of the Realm has the right of veto against any legislation of the Lands which affects the provisions of Number 13 of Article 7, in so far as the interests of the whole community of the Realm are thereby affected. ”

“ The people have a suspensive veto and, finally, a definitive veto, which they may exercise when they please. To this end, they may assemble in extraordinary session; one-fifth of the citizens who have the right to vote suffice for their convocation. ”

“ The veto is, in fact, a sort of appeal to the people. The executive power, which, without this security, might have been secretly oppressed, adopts this means of pleading its cause and stating its motives. But if the legislature is certain of overpowering all resistance by persevering in its plans, I reply, that in the constitutions of all nations, of whatever kind they may be, a certain point exists at which the legislator is obliged to have recourse to the good sense and the virtue of his fellow-citizens. ”

“ It was the great safeguard against illegal or inequitable acts performed by magistrates, who were irresponsible during their year of office, and the tribune’s major potestas over every magistrate made him the guardian of the interests, originally of the Plebs and later of the whole community.
A veto to be valuable should imply some knowledge of the business vetoed ”

“ We have been lately informed, that the unhappy king of England, in perhaps his last illness, transmitted a paper to parliament, with his royal signature attached to it, which became an object of great curiosity. Can any one believe, that that paper conveyed any other sentiments than those of his majesty’s ministers? It is impossible, that the veto message should express the opinions of the president, and I prove it by evidence derived from himself. ”

“ The proceedings of the original Constitutional Convention show beyond all doubt that the power to veto or negative state laws was denied Congress. On several occasions proposals were submitted to the convention to grant this power to Congress. These proposals were debated extensively and on every occasion when submitted for vote they were overwhelmingly rejected. [3] The refusal to give Congress this extraordinary power to veto state laws was based on the belief that if such power resided in Congress the States would be helpless to function as effective governments. [4] ”

“ Hence, as we have seen, [1323] the veto pronounced on a decree of the Senate by the colleague or superior of the magistrate who has elicited it, is no exception to the rule that the acts of corporations or of private individuals were not subject to this form of invalidation. So little was this the case that, when the decree had been vetoed, the advice of the Senate still remained unimpaired. The annulled resolution was still drawn up, but it had become an auctoritas merely. ”

“ There is something in human nature, wonderfully fond of new inventions, and extremely desirous of improving them, if they bring us either power or money.
The political principle, called a veto or negative, has hitherto been applied to collateral political departments, and wherever it has been given to one, it has been balanced or checked by the same responsive or equivalent power, bestowed on another. In England, the king's veto upon laws is balanced by that of the lords and commons. ”

“ We may, indeed, if insensible to our own rights and independence, give an undue influence to the veto power; but we shall never produce this effect if we confine ourselves to our own appropriate duties, and leave the Executive to perform his. This example will never, I think, be imitated by any party in the country, and we shall then never again be tempted to make war on the veto power. ”

“ A person elected to that high office, having his constituents in every section, State, and subdivision of the Union, must consider himself bound by the most solemn sanctions to guard, protect, and defend the rights of all and of every portion, great or small, from the injustice and oppression of the rest. I consider the veto power, therefore given by the Constitution to the Executive of the United States solely as a conservative power, to be used only first, to protect the Constitution from violation ”

“ The subject of the paragraph is the veto power; and the clause "all bills sent to the President and not returned by him within [Pg 17] —— days shall be Laws, unless the legislature, by their adjournment, prevent their return" was originally written, "unless the legislature by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be the law." The words "its" and "it" are erased with the pen and the words "their" and "they" written over them and the article "a" and a final "s" are stricken out so that the clause as corrected reads as printed. ”

“ If the people, at the next elections, should return a majority to Congress hostile to the veto, and the same measure should be passed a second time, he must indeed be a bold man, and intent upon his own destruction, who would, a second time, arrest it by his veto. After the popular voice has determined the question, the President would always submit, unless, by so doing, he clearly believed he would involve himself in the guilt of perjury, by violating his oath to support the Constitution. ”

“ The people are no more arrayed against themselves, when a jury puts its veto upon a statute, which the other tribunals have sanctioned, than they are when the same veto is exercised by the representatives, the senate, the executive, or the judges. ”

“ III, § 1, of the Constitution can no more be shared with the Executive Branch than the Chief Executive, for example, can share with the Judiciary the veto power, or the Congress share with the Judiciary the power to override a Presidential veto. ”

“ It does more. It is bad to revive the worst decision in our history; but this veto practically sets aside one of the best decisions in our history. I refer to the case of M’Culloch v. Bank of Maryland, where our great magistrate, Chief Justice Marshall, expended all his marvellous talent in expounding the powers of Congress under the Constitution. ”

“ No form of government has ever pretended to any merit, or been allowed to possess any recommendation, except what has been derived from negative checks. The Roman tribunitial veto, however imperfect as a novel experiment, was considered by the people as the best safeguard of their rights; but by a senate installed for life, as highly inconvenient. The veto of the English king is the security for his prerogatives. The mutual negative powers of the two legislative chambers, is the security for their respective rights. An executive negative preserves executive power. ”

“ The power to exercise a legislative veto is not the power to write new law without bicameral approval or Presidential consideration. The veto must be authorized by statute, and may only negative what an Executive department or independent agency has proposed. On its face, the legislative veto no more allows one House of Congress to make law than does the Presidential veto confer such power upon the President. ”