Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/623

 The President of the United States is to have power to return a Bill, which shall have passed the two branches of the Legislature, for reconsideration; and the Bill so returned is to become a law, if, upon that reconsideration, it be approved by two thirds of both Houses. The King of Great Britain, on his part, has an absolute negative upon the Acts of the two Houses of Parliament. The disuse of that power for a considerable time past, does not affect the reality of its existence; and is to be ascribed wholly to the Crown's having found the means of substituting influence to authority, or the art of gaining a majority in one or the other of the two Houses, to the necessity of exerting a prerogative which could seldom be exerted without hazarding some degree of National agitation. The qualified negative of the President differs widely from this absolute negative of the British sovereign; and tallies exactly with the revisionary authority of the Council of Revision of this State, of which the Governor is a constituent part. In this respect the power of the President would exceed that of the Governor of New York, because the former would possess, singly, what the latter shares with the Chancellor and Judges; but it would be precisely the same with that of the Governor of Massachusetts, whose Constitution, as to this Article, seems to have been the original from which the Convention have copied.

The President is to be the "Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States. He is to have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment; to recommend to the consideration of Congress such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; to convene, on extraordinary occasions, both Houses of the Legislature, or either of them, and, in case of