majority of that body.

The propriety of a negative has, upon some occasions, been combated
by an observation, that it was not to be presumed a single man would
possess more virtue and wisdom than a number of men; and that unless
this presumption should be entertained, it would be improper to give the
executive magistrate any species of control over the legislative body.

But this observation, when examined, will appear rather specious than
solid. The propriety of the thing does not turn upon the supposition
of superior wisdom or virtue in the Executive, but upon the supposition
that the legislature will not be infallible; that the love of power may
sometimes betray it into a disposition to encroach upon the rights of
other members of the government; that a spirit of faction may sometimes
pervert its deliberations; that impressions of the moment may sometimes
hurry it into measures which itself, on maturer reflexion, would
condemn. The primary inducement to conferring the power in question upon
the Executive is, to enable him to defend himself; the secondary one is
to increase the chances in favor of the community against the passing
of bad laws, through haste, inadvertence, or design. The oftener the
measure is brought under examination, the greater the diversity in the
situations of those who are to examine it, the less must be the danger
of those errors which flow from want of due deliberation, or of those
missteps which proceed from the contagion of some common passion or
interest. It is far less probable, that culpable views of any kind
should infect all the parts of the government at the same moment and in
relation to the same object, than that they should by turns govern and
mislead every one of them.

It may perhaps be said that the power of preventing bad laws includes
that of preventing good ones; and may be used to the one purpose as well
as to the other. But this objection will have little weight with
those who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that inconstancy and
mutability in the laws, which form the greatest blemish in the character
and genius of our governments. They will consider every institution
calculated to restrain the excess of law-making, and to keep things in
the same state in which they happen to be at any given period, as much
more likely to do good than harm; because it is favorable to greater
stability in the system of legislation. The injury which may possibly
be done by defeating a