n itself.

If the Presidential veto be objected to upon the ground that it checks
and thwarts the popular will, upon the same principle the equality of
representation of the States in the Senate should be stricken out of
the Constitution. The vote of a Senator from Delaware has equal weight
in deciding upon the most important measures with the vote of a Senator
from New York, and yet the one represents a State containing, according
to the existing apportionment of Representatives in the House of
Representatives, but one thirty-fourth part of the population of the
other. By the constitutional composition of the Senate a majority of
that body from the smaller States represent less than one-fourth of the
people of the Union. There are thirty States, and under the existing
apportionment of Representatives there are 230 Members in the House
of Representatives. Sixteen of the smaller States are represented in
that House by but 50 Members, and yet the Senators from these States
constitute a majority of the Senate. So that the President may recommend
a measure to Congress, and it may receive the sanction and approval of
more than three-fourths of the House of Representatives and of all the
Senators from the large States, containing more than three-fourths of
the whole population of the United States, and yet the measure may be
defeated by the votes of the Senators from the smaller States. None, it
is presumed, can be found ready to change the organization of the Senate
on this account, or to strike that body practically out of existence by
requiring that its action shall be conformed to the will of the more
numerous branch.

Upon the same principle that the _veto_ of the President should be
practically abolished the power of the Vice-President to give the
casting vote upon an equal division of the Senate should be abolished
also. The Vice-President exercises the _veto_ power as effectually by
rejecting a bill by his casting vote as the President does by refusing
to approve and sign it. This power has been exercised by the
Vice-President in a few instances, the most important of which was the
rejection of the bill to recharter the Bank of the United States in
1811. It may happen that a bill may be passed by a large majority of the
House of Representatives, and may be supported by the Senators from the
larger States, and the Vice-President may reject it by giving his vote
with the Senators from the smaller States; and yet none,