Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/355

 CH. XIII.] spirit of deliberation and independence, which distinguishes the councils of modern times. The French constitution of 1791, a laboured and costly fabric, on which the philosophers and statesmen of France exhausted all their ingenuity, and which was prostrated in the dust in the course of one year from its existence, gave to the king a negative upon the acts of the legislature, with some feeble limitations. Every bill was to be presented to the king, who might refuse his assent; but if the two following legislatures should successively present the same bill in the same terms, it was then to become a law. The constitutional negative, given to the president of the United States, appears to be more wisely digested, than any of the examples, which have been mentioned.

§ 881. The reasons, why the president should possess a qualified negative, if they are not quite obvious, are, at least, when fairly expounded, entirely satisfactory. In the first place, there is a natural tendency in the legislative department to intrude upon the rights, and to absorb the powers of the other departments of government. A mere parchment delineation of the boundaries of each is wholly insufficient for the protection of the weaker branch, as the executive unquestionably is; and hence there arises a constitutional necessity of arming it with powers for its own defence. If the executive did not possess this qualified negative, he would gradually be stripped of all his authority, and become, what it is well known the governors of some states are, a mere pageant and shadow of magistracy.