But, after all, what is the nature of this qualified veto under the Constitution? It is, in fact, but an appeal taken by the President from the decision of Congress, in a particular case, to the tribunal of the sovereign people of the several States, who are equally the masters of both. If they decide against the President, their decision must finally prevail, by the admission of the Senator himself. The same President must either carry it into execution himself, or the next President whom they elect, will do so. The veto never can do more than postpone legislative action on the measure of which it is the subject, until the will of the people can be fairly expressed. This suspension of action, if the people should not sustain the President, will not generally continue longer than two years, and it cannot continue longer than four. If the people, at the next elections, should return a majority to Congress hostile to the veto, and the same measure should be passed a second time, he must indeed be a bold man, and intent upon his own destruction, who would, a second time, arrest it by his veto. After the popular voice has determined the question, the President would always submit, unless, by so doing, he clearly believed he would involve himself in the guilt of perjury, by violating his oath to support the Constitution. At the end of four years, however, in any and every event, the popular will must and would be obeyed by the election of another President.
Sir, the Senator from Kentucky, in one of those beautiful passages which always abound in his speeches, has drawn a glowing picture of the isolated condition of kings, whose ears the voice of public opinion is never permitted to reach; and he has compared their condition in this particular, with that of the President of the United States. Here too, he said, the Chief Magistrate occupied an isolated station, where the voice of his country and the cries of its distress could not reach his ear. But is there any justice in this comparison? Such a picture may be true to the life when drawn for an European monarch; but it has no application whatever to a President of the United States. He, sir, is no more than the first citizen of this free Republic. No form is required in approaching his person, which can prevent the humblest of his fellow-citizens from communicating with him. In approaching him, a freeman of this land is not compelled to decorate himself in fantastic robes, or adopt any particular form of dress, such as the court etiquette of Europe requires. The President, intermingles freely with his fellow-citizens, and hears the opinions of all. The public press attacks him—political parties, in and out of Congress, assail him, and the thunders of the Senator’s own denunciatory eloquence are reverberated from the Capitol, and reach the White House before its incumbent can lay his head upon his pillow. His every act is subjected to the severest scrutiny, and he reads in the newspapers of the day the decrees of public opinion. Indeed, it is the privilege of everybody to assail him. To contend that such a Chief Magistrate is isolated from the people, is to base an argument upon mere fancy, and not upon facts. No, sir; the President of the United States is more directly before the people, and more immediately responsible, than any other department of our Government: and woe be to that President who shall ever affect to withdraw from the public eye, and seclude himself in the recesses of the Executive mansion!
The Senator has said, and with truth, that no veto of the President has ever been overruled, since the origin of the Government. Not one. Although he introduced this fact for another purpose than that which now induces me to advert to it, yet it is not the less true on that account. Is not this the strongest possible argument to prove that there never yet has been a veto, in violation of the public will?
[Here Mr. Clay observed that there had been repeated instances of majorities in Congress deciding against vetoes.]
Mr. Buchanan resumed. I am now speaking of majorities, not of Congress, but of the people. I shall speak of majorities in Congress presently.
Why, sir, has no veto been ever overruled? Simply because the President has never exercised, and never will exercise, this perilous power on any important occasion, unless firmly convinced that he is right, and that he will be sustained by the people. Standing alone, with the whole responsibility of his high official duties pressing upon him, he will never brave the enormous power and influence of Congress, unless he feels a moral certainty that the people will come to the rescue. When he ventures to differ from Congress and appeal to the people, the chances are all against him. The members of the Senate and the House are numerous, and are scattered over the whole country, whilst the President is but an individual confined to the city of Washington. Their personal influence with their constituents is, and must be, great. In such a struggle, he must mainly rely upon the palpable justice of his cause. Under these circumstances, does it not speak volumes in favor of the discretion with which the veto power has been exercised, that it has never once been overruled, in a single instance, since the origin of the Government, either by a majority of the people in the several States, or by the constitutional majority in Congress.
It is truly astonishing how rarely this power has ever been exercised. During the period of more than half a century which has elapsed since the meeting of the first Congress under the Constitution, about six thousand legislative acts have been passed. How many of these, sir, do you suppose have been disapproved by the President? Twenty, sir; twenty is the whole number. I speak from a list now in my hand prepared by one of the clerks of the Senate. And this number embraces not merely those bills which have been actually vetoed; but all such as were retained by him under the Constitution, in consequence of having been presented at so late a period of the session that he could not prepare his objections previous to the adjournment. Twenty is the sum total of all!
Let us analyze these vetoes (for I shall call them all by that name) for a few moments. Of the twenty, eight were on bills of small comparative importance, and excited no public attention. Congress at once yielded to the President’s objections, and in one remarkable instance, a veto of General Jackson was laid upon the table on the motion of the Senator from Kentucky himself. No attempt was even made to pass the bill in opposition to this veto, and no one Senator contested its propriety. Eleven of the twelve remaining vetoes upon this list, relate to only three subjects. These are, a Bank of the United States; internal improvements in different forms; and the distribution of the proceeds of the public lands among the several States. There have been four vetoes of a Bank of the United States; one by Mr. Madison, one by General Jackson, and two by Mr. Tyler. There have been six vetoes on internal improvements, in different forms; one by Mr. Madison, one by Mr. Monroe, and four by General Jackson. And General Jackson vetoed the bill to distribute the proceeds of the sales of the public lands among the several States. These make the eleven.
The remaining veto was by General Washington; and it is remarkable that it should be the most questionable exercise of this power which has ever occurred. I refer to his second and last veto, on the first of March, 1797, and but three days before he retired from office, on the “Act to alter and amend an act, entitled an act to ascertain and fix the military establishment of the United States.” In this instance, there was a majority of nearly two-thirds in the House of Representatives, where it originated, in favor of passing the act, notwithstanding the objections of the Father of his Country. The vote was fifty-five in the affirmative to thirty-six in the negative. This act provided for the reduction of the military establishment of the country; and the day will probably never again arrive when any President will venture to veto an act reducing the standing army of the United States.
Then in the range of time since the year 1789, there have been but twenty vetoes; and eleven of these related to only three subjects which have radically divided the two great political parties of the country. With the exception of twenty, all of the acts which have ever passed Congress, have been allowed to take their course without any executive interference.