to them that the
termination of their own official existence is at hand; that they
are even now about to return to receive the sentence of their
constituents upon themselves; that the legislative power of the
Union, crippled and disabled as it may now be, is about to pass,
renovated and revivified by the will of the people, into other
hands, upon whom will devolve the task of providing that remedy for
the public distempers which their own honest and agonizing energies
have in vain endeavored to supply.

"The power of the present Congress to enact laws essential to the
welfare of the people has been struck with apoplexy by the executive
hand. Submission to his will is the only condition upon which he
will permit them to act. For the enactment of a measure, earnestly
recommended by himself, he forbids their action, unless coupled with
a condition declared by himself to be on a subject so totally
different that he will not suffer them to be coupled in the same
law. With that condition Congress cannot comply. In this state of
things he has assumed, as the committee fully believe, the exercise
of the whole legislative power to himself, and is levying millions
of money upon the people, without any authority of law. But the
final decision of this question depends neither upon legislative nor
executive, but upon judicial authority; nor can the final decision
of the Supreme Court upon it be pronounced before the close of the
present Congress. In the mean time, the abusive exercise of the
constitutional power of the President to arrest the action of
Congress upon measures vital to the welfare of the people has
wrought conviction upon the minds of a majority of the committee
that the veto power itself must be restrained and modified by an
amendment of the constitution itself; a resolution for which they
accordingly herewith respectfully report."

The report was signed by ten members of the committee, including the
chairman. The resolution with which it closed provided for submitting to
the States a proposed modification of the constitution, by substituting
the words "majority of the whole number," instead of the words "two
thirds," by which the power of the House of Representatives to pass a
law, notwithstanding the veto of the President, is at present
restricted.

The report was agreed to in the house by a majori