ple 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 afterwards 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 encroachments of the
legislative department; and, secondly, to preserve the people from
hasty, dangerous, or criminal legislation on the part of their
representatives. This is the design and intention of the veto power; and
the fear expressed by General Hamilton was, that Presidents, so far from
exercising it too often, would not exercise it as often as the safety of
the people required; that they might lack the moral courage to stake
themselves in opposition to a favorite measure of the majority of the
two Houses of Congress; and thus deprive the people, in many instances,
of their right to pass upon a bill before it becomes a final law. The
cases in which President Jackson has exercised the veto power have shown
the soundness of these observations. No ordinary President would have
staked himself against the Bank of the United States and the two Houses
of Congress in 1832. It required President Jackson to confront that
power--to stem that torrent--to stay the progress of that charter, and
to refer it to the people for their decision. His moral courage was
equal to the crisis. He arrested the charter until it could be got to
the people, and they have arrested it forever. Had he not done so, the
charter would have become law, and its repeal almost impossible. The
people of the whole Union would now have been in the condition of the
people of Pennsylvania, bestrode by the monster, in daily conflict with
him, and maintaining a doubtful contest for supremacy between the