to conceal. For these we have no care. If it contain the truth, they will be as evanescent as the morning mists that cloud the star of day. If it do not, let it be condemned, but condemned on its own demerits. The judgment of the English press is petulant, silly, pointless, and perjured. He is accused of ignorance and misstatement in matters of trifling account,-matters not weighing a feather in the great scope and purpose of the book-and accused with so much acrimony, and a criticism so puerile, as to stamp its leading and unquestioned evidence with a double authority. Vindictiveness of cavil, concentrating itself on trifles, is solid attestation of the clear, broad and telling facts, from which it carefully shrinks. In describing legal process, it was impossible he could speak from personal observation. He was obliged to derive his information from books. These books, owing to sessional changes in English jurisprudence and court practice, must necessarily lead him a little astray; nor is it astonishing if he mistake the exact functions of such important personages as Richard Roe, John Doe and Whipple Thrustout. So, too, of the college life of to-day, as compared with the college life to be found in books, which led him into some slight errors, whereupon the hell of criticism cast up its fiery contents-" Acheronta movebo!" roared some Oxford fag, whose fagging a "foreigner" dared to overdo. Had the foreigner arrived in London from some eastern clime, where England's Parliamentary records do not run, one year after the merchants in that Parliament and the nabobs on the palace back-stairs, had squeezed out of the white slaves at home £20,000,000 sterling, as payment for the worn out flesh and blood of some thousands of black slaves in the colonies; and had he, deriving his information from her then published state papers, written strictures on her tortures of her slaves, the "Van of human freedom" would howl him such an octave, and would so rate him for his ignorance, as to make him wish himself at Babel or in Bedlam! What! they, who not only had no slaves, (none, except the miners and the clodpoles, and the weavers and the sempstresses, and the dock-laborers and the sailors, and the Irish bog-trotters,) but who felt impelled to put an end to slavery elsewhere all over the world, as the champions of liberty,-Anglice, in order that no African could underwork their free laborer,-they to be twitted with cruelty in the treatment of those held to service? "They'd have you mimic no such mouthing, my master."

So it is in the present instance; and so be it. Here, however, this petulance makes no mountains out of molehills, were they alive with stinging ants. And here, too, the book will be judged on its own merits. The importance of its unquestioned facts cannot be over-estimated. At this time of unsettled opinion and unbridled imitation of Anglo-Saxonism, when our most accomplished bon vivants cannot quaff their port save with an Anglo-Saxon smack, it is especially well-timed, and may prove of incalculable utility. In the hope it will do so, we commend its perusal to the two secretaries to the cabinet, to the senate-and we earnestly commend to the enterprise of some publisher the task of making it accessible to the millions of men, who "live and die by labor, in this empire." It would amply repay him for his outlay, and more amply repay them for its perusal. If its contents were even partially known, the World's Fair would have fewer visitors, and the world's paragon not one imitator. This is the morale of our critique.

THE VETO POWER OF THE PRESIDENT.

INTRODUCTION.

To the Hon. HORATIO SEYMOUR,

Lately Democratic Candidate for Governor of the State of New-York:

MY DEAR SIR:-As you failed of success, by only about three hundred and eighty Votes, at our last election, and under a party disorganization which transmutes into personal respect the suffrages you received, I shall not be surprised, from my knowledge of your intellectual and moral qualifications, should you be called, in the progress of your life, to stations of much more extensive utility than the office of Governor. I will not adopt Joseph's speech to Pharoah's butler, and say, "show kindness, I pray thee, to me, when it shall be well with thee;" but I will subjoin to this introductory letter, a brief essay on the Veto Power, that you, or some other citizen, who shall be favored with the privilege, may show kindness to our country, which needs it more than I.

In the Democratic Review of last January, I demonstrated, that a strict construction of the Constitution is essential to our permanance as a confederacy. The Negro difficulties of last year, like the Excise rebellion of 1799, and the Tariff nullification of 1832, proceeded from a lax construction of the Constitution; and we may now cry peace measures! peace measures! But we shall realize no peace, except we construe strictly the powers of the general government.

The difference between a strict construction and a loose construction, has ever seperated the political parties, which, under varying names, have existed in our country Without this difference we may disagree empirically in our preferences for different men and particular measures, but we shall be divided by no fixed principles. The present attempt, therefore, to found a Union party on the negro question, irrespective of whether the Constitution shall be construed strictly or loosely on the tariff, public improvements, the veto, &c., is like the old story of enacting the play of Hamlet, with the character of Hamlet omitted. The project may serve the purposes of partisans, as the play so enacted served the temporary purpose of the actors; but both schemes are alike deceptious for any permanent utility.

Our government is fast departing from a strict limitation in a new particular;-the Constitution says: "the Executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States." He need consult nobody in the exercise of his duties, though he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices;" but now such officers constitute themselves a cabinet council, and, like a British cabinet, assume the presidential functions, thereby committing a usurpation which no sanction of the President can legalize. But the illegality of the practice is its least evil. A British cabinet, being recognized as crown advisers, act responsibly, while ours, being a volunteer conclave, are like the cloud which followed in the rear of the Israelites: they screen the President, and are themselves invulnerable. Nor is this all the evil:-every man's caution is heightened ratably, and every man's perceptions are ratably sharpened, by the degree of responsibility under which he is acting; hence, when the President transfers any of his personal duties to his Secretaries, they will act under less responsibility than the President, and therefore will act under circumstances less favorable to wisdom. But even a responsible cabinet possesses disadvantages in contrast with a single Executive. In a council of, say, seven men, the responsibility is divided by seven; and by a law of nature, a man's solicitude will be only proportioned to his responsibility, and his acuteness will be proportioned to his solicitude. A council of seven is, therefore, not a lens with a focal power of one multiplied by seven, but with a focal power of one divided by seven. The dismissions from office by President Taylor, exemplify one of the practical evils of this innovation. His anti-election disclaimer of removals for partisan differences, induced the people to favor his elevation; and when

his post election conduct falsified the expectations therein of the people, the discrepancy was attributed to his secretaries. The people, therefore, in a presidential election, can no longer exercise any control over the principles by which they will be governed, but are restricted to a barren choice between the persons of rival men of straw.

In short, we are arrived at a period when the character of our government depends on the secretaries who chance to fill the executive offices. We know that the death of a recent President proved providential in behalf of public tranquillity, by occasioning the removal of a cabinet. A President may doubtless advise with his officers, and with all persons whose opinions may assist his own; but that such advice shall become an admitted executive machinery, is to interpose an unconstitutional shield between the President and the people. Hoping better practices are in store for our country at no distant day, and a return to the strict construction of Jefferson and Jackson, whose secretaries were compelled to confine themselves to their proper departmental duties, I proceed to the consideration of the veto power.

UTICA, New-York, February 1st, 1851.

THE AUTHOR.

THE VETO POWER OF THE PRESIDENT.

EVERY bill which shall have passed both Houses of Congress, must, be presented to the President before it can become a law :-"If he approve, he shall sign it; but, if not, he shall return it, with his objections, to that house in which it shall have originated." This simple mandate of the Constitution is dwindled, by a latitudinarian construction, into a power of rejection, only when a bill shall be unconstitutional; or the two Houses of Congress shall have passed it without due deliberation. To thus relax the veto seems to diminish the powers of government, and we become surprised at finding the relaxation among the tenets of politicians, who characteristically enlarge the powers of government; but our surprise will cease, if we remember that the relaxation diminishes restraints on the legislature, which is the only usurping branch of our government; hence the means of usurpation become increased, just in proportion as the veto power becomes diminished.

A President who subordinates his will to the will of Congress, subordinates the people to their servants.

A representative in Congress represents the two hundred and thirtythird part of the United States. His constituents are locally contiguous, and he regards supremely their interests. A senator represents the sixtysecond part of the Union, the half of some one state, to which, alone, he is amenable; and its wishes control his conduct. But the President represents the whole Union-States and people. To him, therefore, belongs properly a supervision over every bill, before it shall become a law. His disapproval of a bill is national, not personal; just as the sentence of death pronounced on a convict, is a fiat of law spoken through a judge, who, personally, would shed no blood. A President must lose himself in his office, not lose his office in himself, or the humility of the officer will humble the office with the people whom the office typifies. The humility of a clergyman may well incline him to refrain from censuring sins, sinner as he is in common with his congregation; but he censures in the name of his Divine Master. So a house of worship, stone, brick or wood, challenges all men within it to stand uncovered, not in reverence of the structure, but of the Deity to whom it is dedicated.

A Veto is an appeal to the people as supreme arbiter.

In law-suits, a demurrer arrests the proceedings till the court shall

decide the merits of the objection, and a presidential veto arrests legislation till the people shall decide thereon at the next presidential election. A veto is, therefore, in honor of the people, as a court of last resort. General Jackson thus considered it when, July 10th, 1832, he vetoed a recharter of the United States Bank. He said, "I have now done my duty to my country. If sustained by my fellow citizens, I shall be grateful and happy; if not, I shall find in the motives which impel me, ample grounds for contentment and peace." Instead, then, of being a "one man power," a veto is an every man's power, and the highest privilege that pertains to the people. Congress felt this, when they presented to General Jackson the above bank bill just before the expiration of his first official term, and when he was a candidate for re-election. They knew he would veto it, and they wanted to subject his veto to the review of the people. The case constituted a direct appeal to the people by Congress and the President; and admirably illustrates the power conferred on the people by a proper exercise of the veto.

A Presidential Veto is the people's only security against Congressional venality and usurpation.

The people may remove a representative every second year, and a senator every sixth year; but a re-charter of the United States Bank could not have been corrected by a removal of all who had voted for it. The contract would have been consummated and irrevocable, had it not been arrested by a veto; and such are all the cases to which a veto has been applied. But the benefits which have resulted from vetoes cannot be estimated by only the few cases wherein they have been exercised. Had Monroe not vetoed the Cumberland Road Bill in 1822, or Jackson the Maysville Stock Subscription in 1830, who sees not the extent to which such legislation would have been carried by Congress, whose organization favors such legislation;—the roads which it should construct in any state, provoking every other state to procure like legislation. Nay, the representative of every congressional district would be ambitious to procure for his locality what any other representative had procured; hence, every step in such legislation would produce others in a compound progression, till legislation would degenerate into a scramble for spoils. Nor should we omit among the advantages of the veto, its check on the venality of so promiscuous and numerous a body as Congress:-to say nothing of higher officials. The Galphin disclosures of last year shocked morality; but who can help believing that the Galphin case was more peculiar in its exposure than its occurrence. The revival of old and rejected claims against the government is become common; and charity tries in vain to suppose that the claims are advocated disinterestedly in Congress. The veto of President Polk saved the country in his day from French Claim spoliators; but his veto is more effectual in showing how a President ought to act, than it will be in finding imitators. The statute of limitations which every state enacts, is not designed to prevent the payment of just demands, but to provide against the evanescence of testimony; for if a claim seems just after fifty years of rejection, we ought to infer that the facts are forgotten which showed its injustice, and not that our predecessors were disinclined to be just.

The Veto is powerless for evil.

We often hear that a king of England would lose his head should he thwart, by veto, the British Parliament. The king, however, retains his position for life, and his veto is not susceptible of a quadrennial review by the people, nor reversible, like a President's, by a two-third vote of the legislature. Besides, the king vetoes to retain power, which the people are seeking, through Parliament, to wrest from him; but a President vetoes to disclaim power and patronage, that Congress are attempting to invest him with by wresting it from the people. Such has been the character of all past presidential vetoes; and that an exercise of the power evinces a victory by duty over personal ease, may be inferred from the few vetoes which have been pronounced during our sixty-two years of national existence; and inferred from nothing more clearly than from President Polk's sanction of the Oregon Territorial Bill, with the Wilmot Proviso superadded, and which uncharacteristic sanction he in vain sought to justify by an apologetic explanation. The people need not, therefore, fear that the veto will be exercised excessively. Its exercise demands rather the encouragement of every patriot; especially, as its most mistaken application can delay but briefly what it may improperly arrest.

The Veto performs for Legislation what Chancery performs for the Common Law.

President Fillmore's implied declaration to veto a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, exemplifies, in its salutary influence over fifteen states, another utility of the veto power, especially when contrasted with the uneasiness which they evinced previously, by reason of the tenets of his party that no veto was proper, except against unconstitutional legislation. For nearly fifty years the slave states have deemed the veto their surest reliance against Congressional aggression; hence the uniform desire of the South that the President should be a southron. This, more than the victories of Gen. Taylor, caused his election; nor could Van Buren have. been elected in 1837, had he not then been " a northern man with southern feelings." Indeed, the veto is admirably adapted to mitigate the tyranny of a legislative majority, when the tyranny is to be exercised, as with us, over states organized severally, with all the machinery of sovereignty;-arsenals, munitions, revenues, a legislature, judiciary, militia, and citizens accustomed to local obedience; and when, accordingly, Congressional tyranny is liable to disrupt the Union. In England, where a veto is practically unknown, no such urgency for its exercise exists, for how numerous soever may become the victims of a legislative majority, they possess no means of counter-aggression but unorganized brute riot and impotent clamor. The Court of Chancery is said "to break the teeth of the Common Law," which would compel a man to pay two thousand dollars, as a penalty, for not paying one thousand on a stipulated day. The presidential veto tempers, with equal beneficence, the tyranny of a Congressional majority, which can, by a plurality of one member, abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, enforce the Wilmot Proviso on the people of a new territory, or outrage otherwise the feelings of fifteen states.