will actually destroy more public property, in twelve months of mal-administration, by restraints on commerce, by bounties on manufactures, by crippling the growth of productive industry, and by numberless other political blunders, than would suffice to pay the most magnificent stipends to executive officers for a hundred years. And if we add to this the much higher considerations of the loss of national honour, and the degradation of national character-which an incapable administration always inflict upon their country-we cannot hesitate to pronounce, that the system of under-paying public officers has a direct tendency to ensure the perpetual weakness and disgrace of a community.

All bills for raising revenue in the United States originate in the House of Representatives; the senate proposing, or concurring with amendments, as on other bills. Every bill, which has passed the House of Representatives and the senate, before it becomes a law, is presented to the President of the United States: if he approve, he signs it; if not, he returns it, with his objections, to the house originating the bill: that house enters the objections on its journals, and reconsiders the bill; when, if two-thirds agree to pass it, the bill is sent, with the objections, to the other house, which also re-considers it; and, if two-thirds of that house approve, it becomes a law. If any bill be not returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it has been presented to him, it is a law, unless Congress prevent its return by their adjournment. The same rules are applicable to every order, resolution, or vote of either house.

This qualified negative upon the proceedings of the legislature is given to some of the state governors, by their state constitutions, as well as to the President of the United States, by the federal compact. In England, the executive possesses an absolute negative upon legislative acts; but in republican governments this is deemed too great a power. The royal veto 'was violently discussed in France at the commencement of the revolution, and the discussion closed by cutting off the

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king's head. M. Necker, the Genoese banker and financier, wrote a whole book upon the subject, for the express purpose of enlightening the mind of Louis the Sixteenth, who, however, did not live long enough to read it through. Thus fares it with kings, when their subjects enter into abstract discussions respecting executive prerogatives and privileges. The question, whether or not, in these United States, the executive shall have the power to obstruct altogether, or only to arrest and for a time suspend the will of a majority of the representatives of the people, assembled as a legislative body, has been variously decided in different states. In some, the executive has no control; in others, only a limited or qualified; in none an absolute control. The balance of opinions is in favour of a qualified negative. In 1777 the state of New-York established this principle in her constitution; but united it with a council of revision, composed of the governor, the chancellor, and the judges of the supreme court, to whom all bills are submitted, after they have passed both houses of the legislature.

In 1780 the constitution of Massachusetts vested the veto in the governor alone. In 1786 the constitution of Vermont vested in the governor and council the power not only to propose amendments to laws, but to suspend them to the next session of the legislature. In 1787 the constitution of the United States vested in the president; in 1789, and 1795, the constitution of Georgia, in 1790 that of Pennsylvania, in 1792 those of New-Hampshire and Kentucky, in 1812 that of Louisiana, in August, 1817, that of Mississippi, vested in their respective governors the power to negative all laws, unless re-considered, and passed by both houses of the legislature. In Connecticut the governor and council, forming the Upper House, possess complete legislative powers. In the states of Delaware, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Ohio, (which last constitution was framed in November, 1802,) the constitutions withhold even a qualified negative from the executive. By the constitution of South Carolina, in 1776, the governor had a

full and unqualified veto in all cases. This power was annulled by the constitution of 1778, and even a qualified negative was refused admittance into the constitution of 1790. This seems to be a momentous error; for, whatever may be thought of the impropriety of entrusting a republican executive with an absolute veto upon all legislative proceedings, yet the advantages of a qualified negative are many and obvious.

In nearly all the states the senate is elected by the same electors who vote for representatives, and in consequence must generally be influenced by the same popular prejudices, and propelled by the same sudden and impetuous emotions; whence it cannot be a sufficient check upon the passions of the Lower House. When laws are passed amidst the heat and smoke of those violent impulses, which occasionally agitate every free community, it is essential to the stability and character of the government, that some external check, dehors the legislature, should exist, in order to arrest and allay the temporary ebullitions of legislative insanity. And in what hands so proper as those of the executive can such a power be deposited? In the event of the governor's using his qualified negative, the legislature may still pass the law, provided, upon a reconsideration of the question, two-thirds of both houses concur in thinking the bill salutary. But the mere circumstance of calling upon them again to consider the bill, laden with the deliberate objections of the executive, when time has been given for the storm of popu lar passion to subside, will, in general, be sufficient to prevent the passing of a very pernicious law.

In the constitution of the United States, and in those of all the states, except Virginia and North Carolina, there seems to be the same mode of trying by impeachment, the accusation proceeding from the more numerous branch of the legislature, and being heard before the other house. There are some variations in the different constitutions, as to the number of members required in both houses to constitute an accusation and conviction; in some, simple majorities being sufficient;

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in others, two-thirds being required; in some a mere majority of the house may vote an impeachment, but two-thirds of the senate must convict. It might be observed that the practice of originating money-bills in the House of Representatives, which prevails very generally in the American Constitutions, is derived from a similar practice in the House of Commons in England, and was transplanted to this country, and engrafted into its system of colonial policy. Whatever reason there might be for such a provision in England, in order to give the Lower House some counterpoise of strength against the predominating influence of an hereditary monarchy and aristocracy, or however necessary it might have been under the colonial governments of British America, as a counterbalance to the weight of the Councils, or Upper Houses, appointed by the crown, there does not appear to be the same urgent necessity for adopting such a provision in the present American constitutions, since in all of them, with only three exceptions, namely, those of the United States, Maryland, and Kentucky, the senators and representatives both emanate from the same. source, that of popular election; and, throughout the Union, the lower branch of the legislature has a tendency to absorb within its own vortex all the substantial powers of government, both state and federal.

Under the authority of the federal constitution Congress has power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, -all duties, imposts, and excises being uniform throughout the United States; to borrow money on the credit of the United States; to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes; to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States; to coin money, and regulate its value and that of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures; to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States; to establish post-offices

and post-roads; to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; to constitute tribunals inferior to the supreme court; to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations; to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; to raise and support armies, (no appropriation of money, however, for that use, being for a longer term than two years,) to provide and maintain a navy; to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces; to provide for calling forth the militia, to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions; to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia, according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

The federal constitution likewise empowers Congress to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases, over such district, not exceeding ten miles square, as may by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States; and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of a state legislature, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings; and to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, vested by the constitution in the government of the United States, or any of its departments or offices. The permanent seat of the government of the United States was established, by act of Congress, upon the river Potomac, including the town of Alexandria, in Virginia, and Georgetown, in Maryland. The laws of Virginia, with some exceptions, were declared in force in that part of the ten miles square ceded by Virginia, and those of Maryland in the part ceded by Maryland.

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