A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 7, part 2: Rutherford B. Hayes
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 7, part 2: Rutherford B. Hayes
Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, 1822-1893; Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
The money required for this purpose has
been collected from the people and is now in the Treasury, ready to
be paid out as soon as the appropriation bills are passed. Whether
appropriations are made or not, the collection of the taxes will go
on. The public money will accumulate in the Treasury. It was not the
intention of the framers of the Constitution that any single branch of
the Government should have the power to dictate conditions upon
which this treasure should be applied to the purpose for which it was
collected. Any such intention, if it had been entertained, would have
been plainly expressed in the Constitution.
That a majority of the Senate now concurs in the claim of the House
adds to the gravity of the situation, but does not alter the
question at issue. The new doctrine, if maintained, will result in
a consolidation of unchecked and despotic power in the House of
Representatives. A bare majority of the House will become the
Government. The Executive will no longer be what the framers of
the Constitution intended--an equal and independent branch of the
Government. It is clearly the constitutional duty of the President to
exercise his discretion and judgment upon all bills presented to him
without constraint or duress from any other branch of the Government.
To say that a majority of either or both of the Houses of Congress may
insist upon the approval of a bill under the penalty of stopping all
of the operations of the Government for want of the necessary supplies
is to deny to the Executive that share of the legislative power which
is plainly conferred by the second section of the seventh article
of the Constitution. It strikes from the Constitution the qualified
negative of the President. It is said that this should be done
because it is the peculiar function of the House of Representatives to
represent the will of the people. But no single branch or department
of the Government has exclusive authority to speak for the American
people. The most authentic and solemn expression of their will
is contained in the Constitution of the United States. By that
Constitution they have ordained and established a Government whose
powers are distributed among coordinate branches, which, as far as
possible consistently with a harmonious cooperation, are absolutely
independent of each other. The people of this country are unwilling to
see the supremacy of the Constitution replaced by the omnipotence of
any one department of the Government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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