To assist or control Congress,
then, in its ordinary legislation could not, I conceive, have been
the motive for conferring the veto power on the President. This
argument acquires additional force from the fact of its never
having been thus used by the first six Presidents--and two of them
were members of the Convention, one presiding over its
deliberations and the other bearing a larger share in consummating
the labors of that august body than any other person. But if bills
were never returned to Congress by either of the Presidents above
referred to upon the ground of their being inexpedient or not as
well adapted as they might be to the wants of the people, the veto
was applied upon that of want of conformity to the Constitution or
because errors had been committed from a too hasty enactment.
There is another ground for the adoption of the veto principle,
which had probably more influence in recommending it to the
Convention than any other. I refer to the security which it gives
to the just and equitable action of the Legislature upon all parts
of the Union. It could not but have occurred to the Convention
that in a country so extensive, embracing so great a variety of
soil and climate, and consequently of products, and which from the
same causes must ever exhibit a great difference in the amount of
the population of its various sections, calling for a great
diversity in the employments of the people, that the legislation
of the majority might not always justly regard the rights and
interests of the minority, and that acts of this character might
be passed under an express grant by the words of the Constitution,
and therefore not within the competency of the judiciary to
declare void; that however enlightened and patriotic they might
suppose from past experience the members of Congress might be, and
however largely partaking, in the general, of the liberal feelings
of the people, it was impossible to expect that bodies so
constituted should not sometimes be controlled by local interests
and sectional feelings.
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