ple to govern themselves; that
there is greater safety in a numerous representative body than in the
single Executive created by the Constitution, and that the Executive
veto is a "one-man power," despotic in its character. To expose the
fallacy of this objection it is only necessary to consider the frame and
true character of our system. Ours is not a consolidated empire, but a
confederated union. The States before the adoption of the Constitution
were coordinate, coequal, and separate independent sovereignties, and by
its adoption they did not lose that character. They clothed the Federal
Government with certain powers and reserved all others, including their
own sovereignty, to themselves. They guarded their own rights as States
and the rights of the people by the very limitations which they
incorporated into the Federal Constitution, whereby the different
departments of the General Government were checks upon each other. That
the majority should govern is a general principle controverted by none,
but they must govern according to the Constitution, and not according to
an undefined and unrestrained discretion, whereby they may oppress the
minority.

The people of the United States are not blind to the fact that they may
be temporarily misled, and that their representatives, legislative and
executive, may be mistaken or influenced in their action by improper
motives. They have therefore interposed between themselves and the laws
which may be passed by their public agents various representations, such
as assemblies, senates, and governors in their several States, a House
of Representatives, a Senate, and a President of the United States. The
people can by their own direct agency make no law, nor can the House of
Representatives, immediately elected by them, nor can the Senate, nor
can both together without the concurrence of the President or a vote of
two-thirds of both Houses.

Happily for themselves, the people in framing our admirable system of
government were conscious of the infirmities of their representatives,
and in delegating to them the power of legislation they have fenced them
around with checks to guard against the effects of hasty action, of
error, of combination, and of possible corruption. Error, selfishness,
and faction have often sought to rend asunder this web of checks and
subject the Government to the control of fanatic and sinister
influences, but these efforts have only satisfied the people of t