erty to receive, any
other emolument than that which may have been determined by the first
act. He can, of course, have no pecuniary inducement to renounce or
desert the independence intended for him by the Constitution.

The last of the requisites to energy, which have been enumerated, are
competent powers. Let us proceed to consider those which are proposed to
be vested in the President of the United States.

The first thing that offers itself to our observation, is the qualified
negative of the President upon the acts or resolutions of the two houses
of the legislature; or, in other words, his power of returning all bills
with objections, to have the effect of preventing their becoming laws,
unless they should afterwards be ratified by two thirds of each of the
component members of the legislative body.

The propensity of the legislative department to intrude upon the rights,
and to absorb the powers, of the other departments, has been already
suggested and repeated; the insufficiency of a mere parchment
delineation of the boundaries of each, has also been remarked upon; and
the necessity of furnishing each with constitutional arms for its own
defense, has been inferred and proved. From these clear and indubitable
principles results the propriety of a negative, either absolute or
qualified, in the Executive, upon the acts of the legislative branches.
Without the one or the other, the former would be absolutely unable
to defend himself against the depredations of the latter. He might
gradually be stripped of his authorities by successive resolutions,
or annihilated by a single vote. And in the one mode or the other, the
legislative and executive powers might speedily come to be blended in
the same hands. If even no propensity had ever discovered itself in the
legislative body to invade the rights of the Executive, the rules of
just reasoning and theoretic propriety would of themselves teach us,
that the one ought not to be left to the mercy of the other, but ought
to possess a constitutional and effectual power of self-defense.

But the power in question has a further use. It not only serves as a
shield to the Executive, but it furnishes an additional security against
the enaction of improper laws. It establishes a salutary check upon the
legislative body, calculated to guard the community against the effects
of faction, precipitancy, or of any impulse unfriendly to the public
good, which may happen to influence a