State of the Union AddressesPolk, James K. (James Knox)
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State of the Union Addresses
Polk, James K. (James Knox)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
In the exercise of the power of the veto the President is responsible not
only to an enlightened public opinion, but to the people of the whole
Union, who elected him, as the representatives in the legislative branches
who differ with him in opinion are responsible to the people of particular
States or districts, who compose their respective constituencies. To deny
to the President the exercise of this power would be to repeal that
provision of the Constitution which confers it upon him. To charge that its
exercise unduly controls the legislative will is to complain of the
Constitution itself.
If the Presidential veto be objected to upon the ground that it checks and
thwarts the popular will, upon the same principle the equality of
representation of the States in the Senate should be stricken out of the
Constitution. The vote of a Senator from Delaware has equal weight in
deciding upon the most important measures with the vote of a Senator from
New York, and yet the one represents a State containing, according to the
existing apportionment of Representatives in the House of Representatives,
but one thirty-fourth part of the population of the other. By the
constitutional composition of the Senate a majority of that body from the
smaller States represent less than one-fourth of the people of the Union.
There are thirty States, and under the existing apportionment of
Representatives there are 230 Members in the House of Representatives.
Sixteen of the smaller States are represented in that House by but 50
Members, and yet the Senators from these States constitute a majority of
the Senate. So that the President may recommend a measure to Congress, and
it may receive the sanction and approval of more than three-fourths of the
House of Representatives and of all the Senators from the large States,
containing more than three-fourths of the whole population of the United
States, and yet the measure may be defeated by the votes of the Senators
from the smaller States. None, it is presumed, can be found ready to change
the organization of the Senate on this account, or to strike that body
practically out of existence by requiring that its action shall be
conformed to the will of the more numerous branch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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