dent Jackson. But one single instance
of outrage has occurred, and that at the extremities of the world, and
by a piratical horde, amenable to no law but the law of force. The
Malays of Sumatra committed a robbery and massacre upon an American
vessel. Wretches! they did not then know that JACKSON was President of
the United States! and that no distance, no time, no idle ceremonial of
treating with robbers and assassins, was to hold back the arm of
justice. Commodore Downes went out. His cannon and his bayonets
struck the outlaws in their den. They paid in terror and blood for the
outrage which was committed; and the great lesson was taught to these
distant pirates--to our antipodes themselves--that not even the entire
diameter of this globe could protect them, and that the name of
American citizen, like that of Roman citizen in the great days of the
Republic and of the empire, was to be the inviolable passport of all
that wore it throughout the whole extent of the habitable world....

From President Jackson, the country has first learned the true theory
and practical intent of the Constitution, in giving to the Executive a
qualified negative on the legislative power of Congress. Far from
being an odious, dangerous, or kingly prerogative, this power, as
vested in the President, is nothing but a qualified copy of the famous
veto power vested in the tribunes of the people among the Romans, and
intended to suspend the passage of a law until the people themselves
should have time to consider it. The qualified veto of the President
destroys nothing; it only delays the passage of a law, and refers it to
the people for their consideration and decision. It is the reference
of a law, not to a committee of the House, or of the whole House, but
to the committee of the whole Union. It is a recommitment of the bill
to the people, for them to examine and consider; and if, upon this
examination, they are content to pass it, it will pass at the next
session. The delay of a few months is the only effect of a veto, in a
case where the people shall ultimately approve a law; where they do not
approve it, the interposition of the veto is the barrier which saves
them the adoption of a law, the repeal of which might afterward be
almost impossible. The qualified negative is, therefore, a beneficent
power, intended as General Hamilton expressly declares in the
"Federalist," to protect, first, the executive department from the
encroac