in to witness
all the evils, commercial revulsions, depression of prices, and
pecuniary embarrassments through which we have passed during the last
twenty-five years.

To guard against consequences so ruinous is an object of high national
importance, involving, in my judgment, the continued prosperity of the
country.

I have felt it to be an imperative obligation to withhold my
constitutional sanction from two bills which had passed the two Houses
of Congress, involving the principle of the internal-improvement branch
of the "American system" and conflicting in their provisions with the
views here expressed.

This power, conferred upon the President by the Constitution, I have on
three occasions during my administration of the executive department of
the Government deemed it my duty to exercise, and on this last occasion
of making to Congress an annual communication "of the state of the
Union" it is not deemed inappropriate to review the principles and
considerations which have governed my action. I deem this the more
necessary because, after the lapse of nearly sixty years since the
adoption of the Constitution, the propriety of the exercise of this
undoubted constitutional power by the President has for the first time
been drawn seriously in question by a portion of my fellow-citizens.

The Constitution provides that--

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