Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[graphic]
[ocr errors][subsumed]
[ocr errors][merged small]
[graphic]

THE

MERICAN WHIG REVIEW.

No. XCV.

NOVEMBER, 1852.

FRANKLIN PIERCE:

HIS QUALIFICATIONS FOR, AND PRETENSIONS TO, THE PRESIDENCY.

must be apparent to every attentive | Unhappily, the history of the country for the ver, that the Executive has attained an lency in the administration of our govnt which was not contemplated by amers of our Constitution.

will be recollected that Hamilton, and who acted with him in the Convention, seriously apprehensive that the Legiswould gradually encroach upon and mine the Executive; hence they were nferring on the latter powers much comprehensive and significant than ultimately_conceded, and were for nding the Presidential office with bargainst the anticipated aggressions of presentatives of the States and of the

last quarter of a century has abundantly vindicated the soundness of his opinions, and made what was prophecy by him a dread reality.

Neither time nor space will allow us to enter into an extended examination of a subject so vitally important; but our readers must indulge us in pointing briefly to the causes which have led to this fearful revolution-causes which, though suspended for the time being, may soon be brought into full activity, and which should be closely watched by every lover of free institutions, and by every friend to the great experiment of self-government which we are now trying in face of the world.

the other hand, it is well known that These causes are to be found in the unHenry insisted that the danger was scrupulous use which has been too often the other side-that the powers ac- made of the veto power; in the control conferred on the chief Executive were which the President can exercise over our ly more extensive than the exigencies foreign relations, holding as he does in his case required, but were in fact highly hands the issues of peace or war; and above ous; and that the President, under all, in an abuse of the appointing power, first onstitution as proposed, would ulti-introduced by the party now in opposition, become the head of a mere party, and ever practised by them, when they could ould arrogate to himself imperial au- influence public sentiment, to shape legisla Hence, he resisted most stren- tion, and to give a direction to public affairs the adoption of the Constitution, and in conformity with the whims, caprices, pred all the vigor of his great mind, and judices, and passions of the hour. On each e resources of his unsurpassed elo- of these points we propose to submit a few , in opposition to the new system. remarks.

XVI. NO. V.

25

But we observe that the framers of the Constitution obviously intended to confer on the Executive only a qualified veto;-they did not dream that the power could or would become absolute in practice, and yet

it has become so in fact.

It was supposed that a bill which might be returned by the President," with his objections, to that House in which it originated," would be taken up and dispassionately considered, and that a majority of two thirds would be found, at least in some instances, to decide that it should "become a law," the objections of the Executive to the contrary notwithstanding. On no other hypothesis can we account for the carefully arranged and apparently well considered provisions or clauses introduced to qualify the veto. If the Convention could have foreseen that the power was to become practically absolute, would so much ingenuity have been displayed, and so much ability exerted, to render "the one-man power subordinate, to some extent, to the will of the people?

We do not intend to touch here on the | been appropriately denominated the pocket motives which induced the investment of veto. The Constitution provides that "if the Presidential office with the veto power. any bill shall not be returned by the PresiFortunately, the history of the Convention, dent within ten days (Sundays excepted) and the expositions of contemporaneous after it shall be presented to him, the same statesmen, (many of them participants in shall be a law in like manner as if he had the counsels of that body,) do not leave us in signed it, unless the Congress by their addoubt. journment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law." Now we insist that the expiration of a Congress is not an "adjournment" within this clause. The Constitution evidently contemplates a voluntary act to be performed by Congress; that body was to prevent the return of a bill "by the President within ten days," in which case it is declared that such bill should not be a law. But how can Congress be said to have prevented such a return when there is in the case nothing but an expiration of their powers by constitutional limitation? Is it not obvious that it was intended that Congress should have an opportunity to pass by a two-thirds vote any and every bill objected to by the President? And yet on the construction here resisted, the President is invested with the absolute power to defeat a large portion of the legislation of the country. It is well known that such is the exuberance of oratory displayed in the two Houses of Congress, that little or no business can be consummated until within the last ten days of each session. It will be found, on examination of the acts of Congress and the journals of the two Houses, that more than nine tenths of such acts have been for a long time "presented to the President" for his approval within the period mentioned; at the first session, within ten days of the adjournment, and at the last within ten days of the expiration of the Congress. And yet Democratic precedent and practice affirm that all the bills coming within the latter category may be pocketed by the President. And this has been repeatedly done. We will point to only one example. At the second session of the Twenty-ninth Congress, the House of Representatives passed a bill of appropriations for river and harbor improvements, and sent it to the Senate; it ultimately received the sanction of that body, but, as has been usual with Congress, at least for many years, it was not consummated so as to be pr last day of President,

[ocr errors]

All the restrictions and qualifications, however, thrown around this power, have proved vain and idle. No instance is recollected where a majority of "two thirds of that House in which a bill originated" have, after it had been returned with objections, "approved" or sustained it, and certainly there is none where two thirds of both Houses have done so. The President then can, by the exercise of his despotic will, defeat any measure, or arrest any course of policy, for his entire term-no matter how imperatively demanded by the interests of the country, or anxiously sought by a vast majority of the people. Even though two thirds, or more than that proportion of their immediate representatives, stand by the measure, yet it is in the power of a minority of but one over a third of the other branch to make the veto effectual.

But we have had added by what we have ever de usurpation, a new speci

n times,

rmous

has feated the

to the President until the 2, when Mr. Polk (then 's pocket, and thus deAt the succeeding ses

« AnteriorContinuar »