The Senator from Kentucky contends that, whether the executive be strong or weak, Congress must conform its action to his wishes, and if they cannot obtain what they desire, they must take what they can get. Such a principle of action is always wrong in itself, and must always lead to the destruction of the party which adopts it. This was the fatal error of the Senator and his friends at the extra session. He has informed us that neither “the Fiscal Bank” nor “the Fiscal Corporation” of that never to be forgotten session would have received twenty votes in either House, had the minds of members been left uninfluenced by the expected action of the Executive.
This was the most severe censure which he could have passed on his party in Congress. It is now admitted that the Whig party earnestly advocated and adopted two most important measures, not because they approved them in the form in which they were presented, but for the sake of conciliating Mr. Tyler. Never was there a more striking example of retributive justice than the veto of both these measures. Whether it be the fact, as the Senator alleges, that the Whigs in Congress took the Fiscal Corporation bill, letter for letter, as it came from the President to them, I shall not pretend to decide. It is not for me to compose such strifes. I leave this to their own file leaders. Without entering upon this question, I shall never fail, when a fit opportunity offers, to express the gratitude which I feel, in common with the whole country, to the President for having vetoed those bills, which it now appears never received the approbation of any person. It does astonish me, however, that this proceeding between the President and his party in Congress should ever have been made an argument in favor of abolishing the veto power.
This argument, if it prove anything at all, sets the seal of condemnation to the measures of the late extra session, and to the extra session itself. It is a demonstration of the hasty, inconsiderate, and immature legislation of that session. In the flush of party triumph, the Whigs rushed it, before passion had time to cool down into that calm deliberation, so essential to the wise and harmonious co-operation of the different branches of the Government. They took so little time to consult and to deliberate, to reconcile their conflicting opinions and interests, and above all to ascertain and fix their real political principles which they had so sedulously concealed from the public eye throughout the contest, that none but those who were heated and excited beyond the bounds of reason ever anticipated any result but division, disaster, and defeat, from the extra session. The party first pursued a course which must have inevitably led to the defeat which they have experienced; and would then revenge themselves for their own misdeeds by assailing the veto power.
The lesson which we have received will teach Congress hereafter not to sacrifice its independence by consulting the executive will. Let them honestly and firmly pass such acts as they believe the public good requires. They will then have done their duty. Afterwards let the Executive exercise the same honesty and firmness in approving these acts. If he vetoes any one of them, he is responsible to the people, and there he ought to be left.
Had this course been pursued at the extra session, Congress would have passed an act to establish an old-fashioned Bank of the United States, which would have been vetoed by the President. A fair issue would thus have been made for the decision of their common constituents. There would then have been no necessity for my friends on this side of the house to submit to the humiliation of justifying themselves before the people, on the principle that they were willing to accept something which they knew to be very bad, because they could not obtain that which they thought the public good demanded.
This whole proceeding, sir, presents no argument against the veto power; although it does present, in a striking light, the subserviency of the Whig party in Congress to executive dictation. We may, indeed, if insensible to our own rights and independence, give an undue influence to the veto power; but we shall never produce this effect if we confine ourselves to our own appropriate duties, and leave the Executive to perform his. This example will never, I think, be imitated by any party in the country, and we shall then never again be tempted to make war on the veto power.
To show that this power ought to be abolished, the Senator has referred to intimations given on this floor, during the administration of General Jackson, that such and such acts then pending would be vetoed, if passed. Such intimations may have been in bad taste; but what do they prove? The Senator does not and cannot say that they ever changed a single vote. In the instances to which he refers, they were the declaration of a fact which was known, or might have been known, to the whole world. A President can only be elected by a majority of the people of the several States. Throughout the canvass, his opinions and sentiments on every leading measure of public policy, are known and discussed. The last election was an exception to this rule; but another like it will never again occur in our day. If, under such circumstances, an act should pass Congress, notoriously in violation of some principle of vital importance, which was decided by the people at his election, the President would be faithless to the duty which he owed both to them and himself, if he did not disapprove the measure. Any person might then declare, in advance, that the President would veto such a bill. Let me imagine one or two cases which may readily occur. Is it not known from one end of the Union to the other, and even in every log cabin throughout its extent, that the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Benton] has an unconquerable antipathy to a paper currency, and an equally unconquerable predilection for hard money? Now, if he should be a candidate for the Presidency,—and much more unlikely events have happened than that he should be a successful candidate—would not his election be conclusive evidence that the people were in favor of gold and silver, and against paper? Under such circumstances, what else could Congress anticipate whilst concocting an old-fashioned Bank of the United States, but that he would instantly veto the bill on the day it was presented to him, without even taking time to sit down in his Presidential chair? (Great laughter, in which Mr. Benton and Mr. Clay both joined heartily.) Let me present a reverse case. Suppose the distinguished Senator from Kentucky should be elected President, would he hesitate, or, with his opinions, ought he to hesitate, a moment in vetoing an Independent Treasury bill, should Congress present him such a measure? And if I, as a member of the Senate, were to assert, in the first case which I have supposed, whilst the bank bill was pending, that it would most certainly be vetoed, to what would this amount? Would it be an attempt to bring executive influence to bear on Congress? Certainly not. It would only be the mere assertion of a well known fact. Would it prove anything against the veto power? Certainly not; but directly the reverse. It would prove that it ought to be exercised—that the people had willed, by the Presidential election, that it should be exercised—and that it was one of the very cases which demanded its exercise.
An anticipation of the exercise of the veto power, in cases which had already been decided by the people, ought to exercise a restraining influence over Congress. It should admonish them that they ought not to place themselves in hostile array against the Executive, and thus embarrass the administration of the Government by the adoption of a measure which had been previously condemned by the people. If the measure be right in itself, the people will, at the subsequent elections, reverse their own decision, and then, and not till then, ought Congress to act. No, sir; when we elect a President, we do it in view of his future course of action, inferred from his known opinions; and we calculate, with great accuracy, what he will and what he will not do. The people have never yet been deceived in relation to this matter, as has been abundantly shown by their approbation of every important veto since the origin of the Government.
This veto power was conferred upon the President to arrest unconstitutional, improvident, and hasty legislation. Its intention (if I may use a word not much according to my taste) was purely conservative. To adopt the language of the Federalist, “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 majority of that body” (Congress). Throughout the whole book, whenever the occasion offers, a feeling of dread is expressed, lest the legislative power might transcend the limits prescribed to it by the Constitution, and ultimately absorb the other powers of the Government. From first to last, this fear is manifested. We ought never to forget that the representatives of the people are not the people themselves. The practical neglect of this distinction has often led to the overthrow of republican institutions. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; and the people should regard with a jealous eye, not only their Executive, but their legislative servants. The representative body, proceeding from the people, and clothed with their confidence, naturally lulls suspicion to sleep; and, when disposed to betray its trust, can execute its purpose almost before their constituents take the alarm.
It must have been well founded apprehensions of such a result which induced Mirabeau to declare, that, without a veto power in the king, who was no more, under the first constitution of France, than the hereditary chief executive magistrate of a republic, he would rather live in Constantinople than in Paris. The catastrophe proved his wisdom; but it also proved that the veto was no barrier against the encroachment of the Legislative Assembly; nor would it have saved his own head from the block, had he not died at the most propitious moment for his fame.