MAYSVILLE ROAD is a highway that runs through Mason County in the bluegrass country of northeastern Kentucky, and its namesake is a small town in that state along the Ohio River. As of the 2000 Census, the Maysville population was 7,323. The quietness of the road and the town whose name it bears would seem to cover the fact that that at one time, 177 years ago Maysville road played a role in a major battle over Congressional and Presidential power... a role that is fundamental in why Bush has the power to threaten a veto of Iraq withdrawal bills today.
The Maysville Road Bill of 1830 provided for the federal government to buy $150,000 in stock in a private company to fund a 60-mile road connecting the towns of Maysville and Lexington, an extension of the Cumberland and National Roads. Before the train and of course well before the automobile, roads and canals were important for the nation's commerce. Then, as now, roads bills provide jobs and money to districts and tend to be popular bills. The U.S. Congress passed the bill, with a 103 to 87 vote in the House of Representatives.
But the bill soon met a veto from President Andrew Jackson. He said in his message I am not able to view [the Maysville Road Bill] in any other light than as a measure of purely local character.... It has no connection with any established system of improvements; [and] is exclusively within the limits of a State [Kentucky].... That state was of course Kentucky, and its favorite son was Jackson's nemisis, Henry Clay. Jackson's argument was really not a Constitutional one, as he would make it clear he didn't mind spending federal funds for imporvements, and it truly wasn't about the seperation of local and federal projects, because it couldn't be said that a road that connected one border of Kentucky to another and connected with other Federal roads could truly be said to be a local road. Indeed, Jackson and his Secretary of State and his budding political confidant Martin Van Buren wanted to ruin the project because it was proposed by Clay, who was rapidly building a movement based on National improvements.
But in stopping the Federal funding of this Bluegrass state road. Andrew Jackson did something spectacular, something highly unsual upon taking office, something that would anger his opponents. He vetoed a bill without a Constitutional reason. The veto itself should not have been shocking. Though Jefferson and John Adams both declined to use the veto, James Madison had vetoed 5 bills and George Washington had vetoed 2. (One because he felt it was unconsitutional, and the other becuase it was sloppy.)
IN the understanding of 35 years of this young political government, the veto power was very limited.. The understanding was that the Presidtn vetoed bills when they were Uncontitutional, sloppy, or affecting the office of the President. In this case Jackson couldn't argue it was unconstitutional for the Congress to fund improvements, he had supported Federal funding of improvements before and after. Jackson had vetoed a bill becuase he didn't like it. Didn't agree with it. An in 1830, this was King-Like behavior. The President did not get a vote - he only got a Constitutional Check. If the legislation was constitutional, as Maysville Road was, he had to sign like it or not. Jackson's action was seen as a violation of the spirit of the veto.
The Old Way: Veto Only When Necessary
Jackson's Maysville veto would bearly make news today. Jackson , a president blocking spending he didn't like, was acting according to our modern understanding of what a President does. (And most likely, in vetoing he was likely acting according to the majority consensus of the Constitutional convention. ) This veto and other actions would lead to the Whig, or anti-King party in America. After Whigs elected William Henry Harrison, he stated that the veto was only to be used to protect the office of Presidency. Another Whig President, Zachary Taylor also said 'personal opinion' of the President should not control the congress" when considering vetos. Old Zack's take was quite different than Presidents today. Taylor's philosphy, followed by his veep Filmore after his death, is occasionally brought up by critics of the veto but seems anachronicstic today.
Jackson's most controversial veto was when, against Congressional opposition, vetoed and killed the Second Bank of the United States, ending the idea of a central United States Bank until Woodrow Wilson created the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Jackson, who as a farmer had run into some financial difficulties in the past, hated banks and wished to cripple their power. Jackson's veto and the Bank's rection would actually provoke a recession in the United States by choking the money supply.
Clinton's Short Lived Jacksonian Moment
In 1996 Bill Clinton would do somehting that despite a little less publicity, provoked nearly as much congressional outrage as Jackson's. Utilizing authority under Congress, Bill Clinton issued four vetos, most notably one that provided federal funding to the CIty of New York. Not unlike Jackson in the first use of the veto for non constitutional purposes, Bill Clinton had politics on his mind. Patrick Moynahan, then Senator from New York who had blocked some of CLinton's early economic plans sereved a constituency that benefited from the plan, told the President "We will see you in Court!" And in the case of Clinton Vs. The CIty of New York, the Supreme Court stripped the President of the line item veto power calling it unconsitutional. In doing so, The supreme court ended a historical legal mystery that Presidents had thought about using for quite a long time....was probably right to do so, as it would give all legislative power to the President. As legislative bills are always compromises, the power Clinton and Reagan wanted would enable them to remove the parts of the bill that were compromise and select new winners and losers in the veto process.
Although President George W. Bush rarely has used the veto, he's of course stated he will veto to any bill that will withdraw funding for the Iraq War, putting some spotlight on the constitutional procedure he has rarely needed to use but may soon need to resort to often.
What did the Founders Think?
During the Debate that created the constitution, the Founding Fathers - though I dislike the use of that term because there were so many of them. Let's say the majority of people who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to debate the Constituion (and now you know why people say founding fathers in common historical parlance) - did clearly want the President to have what they then called a 'negative' Foremost, the veto is protection of the office of President from legislative destruction Members of the convention, especially Alexander Hamilton, were afraid that while they had created a President, within a few years, the Congress would disable the President. In fact, sans a veto in the Constitution, the Congress could eliminate the President's powers with one resolution. That is the emphasis of the veto. But there is some discussion in the Constitutional proceedings that a veto was also useful to 'protect minorites' and to overall have the effect of avoiding regional strife that would dominate a congressional body - to force legislation to be national And in these arguments we see that the President was intended to have some legislative role. But no one wanted to go as far as Hamilton. Hamilton wanted an absolute negative meaning if the President said no, the bill was finished. But unamiously the states voted to have a negative that coud be overrriden only by 2/3 of the people. And so when a bill is presented to the President, he has two options -- sign or veto, or do nothing and it becomes law ( so long as Congress is in session, of course).
John Tyler, the Whig President who succeeded the veto-reluctant Harrison after his death, would betray his party and side with Democrats on most issues. And he would veto bills according to Jackson and not Harrison's precedent. He would follow Jackson's prcedent and veto six bills, so many that he ended up being brought up on impeachment charges for 'preventing the legislative process to moving forward' These charges went nowhere of course. But it could have put a little fear into Presidents...Polk would veto only three bills, Talyor and Fillmore none..
Facing a Republican Congress a little more radical than he, Abraham Lincoln would veto the same numbr of bills as Tyler, sans the impeachement charges. One of his more well-known vetoes was the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864 was a program proposed for the Reconstruction of the South written by two Radical Republicans, Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio and Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland. In contrast to President Abraham Lincoln's more lenient plan, the bill made re-admittance to the Union almost impossible for Confederate states, since it required a majority in each Southern state to swear the Ironclad oath to the effect they had never in the past supported the Confederacy. The bill passed both houses of Congress on July 2, 1864, but was vetoed by Lincoln and never took effect. Lincoln would "pocket veto" the bill, a method that made up the majority of his vetos. pocket veto is a legislative maneuver in American federal lawmaking. He would veto it by not acting. The U.S. Constitution requires the President to sign or veto any legislation placed on his desk within ten days (not including Sundays). If he does not, then it becomes law by default. The one exception to this rule is if Congress adjourns befoe the ten days are up and the President does not sign the bill. Then, there's no Congress to take the matter up. Honest Abe was seeking to avoid the publicity a normal veto generates.
Grover Cleveland: Human Veto Machine
Grover Cleveland was a veritable veto machine, facing a congress that had a vigorus schedule of legislation, he matched the new bills with astonishing rate of vetos that really is unmatched by any other President before or since. Cleveland vetoed as many as 414 bills in his first term, more than double the 204 vetoes cast by all previous presidents. In doing so, Cleveland slowly began to bring the Presidency to its modern powerful place in the legislative process and take some of the reigns back from Congress.
Cleveland was a Bourbon Democrat, a conservative Democrat (named to reflect the restoration of the Burbon monarchy in France and at the same time refer to Southern conservatives who like the drink) and he was elected with the support of rebellious Republicans, and so Grover didnt' feel compulsory loylaty to his Democratic friends who had taken over the House as he was elected President. His goal was cutting down on spending. Some of the biggest targets of his wrath were pensions. Pensions had been getting out of hand. Originally intended for those disabled by war wounds, an 1887 bill would have provided a federal disability and/or old age pensions to any veterans, disabled or not, or even their parents. Cleveland's veto was sustained.
Observing as an academic, a professor named Woodrow Wilson cheered on Cleveland's re-exertion of the powers of the presidency which Wilson felt was neeeded to restore American government to its best working potential. Still Wilson felt the Presidency was not strong enough, and he wrote in an academic paper that the President was more capable of governing than the myopic members of Congress. Though when he would become President twenty five years later and for most of his Presidency had a friendly Democratic Congress, his use of the veto was a fraction of Cleveland's.
When Cleveland vetoed a bill for drought relief in Texas in 1887 and enunciated again what James Madison had said in the 1790's, that the federal government was not authorized to spend money merely on "objects of benevolence." But Grover may have paid a price for vetoing of his own party's spending plans...he was nominated by Democrats for a second term, but less enthusiastically than before, and he would lose the 1888 election. The New York Tammany Hall organization, who did not recieve the share of the spoils they had hoped to, was a big factor in his defeat. But Cleaveland didn't take any lesson from it or didn't care to. When Cleveland was returned to the office, he still vetoed about 170 bills, and in that second term alone he would veto more than any President in history save two.
After Cleveland's roubust use of the veto, few presidents would use the veto a tenth as much as Cleveland, which Presidents averaging 40 per term. The next President, to veto as much legislation as Cleveland was antoher New York Democrat-- but this one was no Burbon, and he certianly wasn't looking to cut Federal spending or limit the role of government in providing relief. Franklin Roosevelt, in his twelve years in office, vetoed over 600 bills--despite the fact that he had huge Democratic majorities in Congress who usually gave him what he wanted. Part of the explanation is that Franklin Roosevelt had 4 terms, of course, and in six years there's going to be legislation a President doesn't like. But that puts his average per term at 200 vetos, still more than the average. So why did FDR need to veto so many bills of his own New Deal Congress. Well, it seems that while Cleveland used the veto to keep spending in line, Roosevelt used vetos to secure spending by punishing members of Congress who did not vote for his programs, as his way of cracking the whip.
Aggressive use of the veto was implemented by FDR’s successor, Harry Truman, who when faced with a Republican Congress from 1947 to 1949, disapproved over 175 bills, using his veto messages as a means of calling attention to his policies while simultaneously attacking "the do-nothing Eightieth Congress." But After Truman, Use of the veto would slow down a bit: Einshower had just 108 vetos over eight years. The use of the veto was an issue in the 1976 race when President Gerald Ford had vetoed 66 bills - a lot for less than 2 years in office, and in his debate with Jimmy Carter, Ford parried the attack by referred to Franklin Roosevelt as an example.
Clinton though in office eight years, and most of that time under hostile Republican control, vetoed only 37 bills. Unlike Grover Cleveland. Clinton desired to be seen as an active President and craved accomplishments. Though like many Presidents, the threat of Clinton's veto especially in the wake of his successful showdown with congress, created compromise. As we know, George W. Bush with a historically rare situation of a Republican congress working in lock-step with him, didn't need the veto in his first term and then used the great Presidential power only to punish innocent stem cells.
Some critics dislike the veto, especially its overuse by modern Presidents (save Bush) When modern presidents use the veto in so blatantly a political manner, they do more than simply engage in partisanship: they also seriously undermine the Constitution itself. A president who vetoes every piece of legislation that he dislikes on policy grounds forces Congress to accede to his wishes, unless it is able to muster a two-thirds majority in both houses to override the vetoes. Profligate use of the veto, in effect, transforms the simple majority vote required by Article I to a two-thirds majority requirement--in effect, working a change in the constitutional procedures for enacting legislation.
I dont' agree with the critics. Although there have been abuses, and although the veto definitely slows government , puts the balance more to the president, and creates a situation where the House does not always have the ability to enact popular will, overall I believe it has not been used as often as the Founders feared, and its use provides a protection for legislation that is too myopic. I do believe that a 2/3rds vote is not a sufficient check on the veto on its own -- it is hard to get and that alone means that a President and one third of the congress can hold government hotage.
But it just doesn't work that way. The modern check on the veto power really througout the 20th century and now...is the attention it generate; vetos are big news. Presidents use it only when they can justify it - when they can make a case that they are acting out of national interest. Most importantly, modern "Action Presidents" dont' normally get bogged down in fighting, they have to be seen as achieving something at all times- if not for themsleves than for their party and perhaps their legacy. Vetos slow things down where Presidents in the modern era need to be the initiators of action. There's too much at stake for Presidents to be 21st century Grover Cleveland. Its unlikely that a President would veto 414 bills as Cleveland did, it woud seriously erode their Popularity. So President Bush may get away with some vetos on Iraq, but my guess is that if Democrats continue to send leglislation his way and he continues to veto it'll bog everythign down and the man in the chair will be blamed for the bog. It will futher erode his Presidency and possibly hurt the '08 Republican nominee.