Presidential Veto Quotes
America’s first political economist. This is a wonderful quotation which shows the compromises that even a great president like Abraham Lincoln had to act when Congress passed must have bills.
At the beginning of the Civil War, Lincoln and many of the Union politicians hoped that the South would “come to its senses” and end the rebellion. As a result, they did not want to take all the draconian steps that they were able to. They wanted to give the Southern moderates room to maneuver and persuade the firebrands. However, there was a fundamental issue at stake—slavery—where there was no real compromise left that would have any lasting effect. The slaveholders would be destroyed in their view—possibly by the war, but certainly in the Union where the majority was strongly opposed to slavery on moral grounds.
In response to South Carolina's nullification of the Tariff Act of 1832, President Jackson proclaimed:
He was referring to a transportation bill that had been packed with earmarks and pork by his own party.
Hamilton thought that the Executive Branch should be co-equal with the Judicial Branch and lifetime tenure should apply to both. This quotation is very important as we consider developing countries and emerging democracies. Some in the third world have Presidents for Life—a concept that most democracies scoff at. But the stability and the independence was important enough to some of the Founding Fathers was actually advocated and considered as we formed the American Democracy.
This was the President’s original role regarding legislation. However, in the 20th century, Presidents have become more active and suggest laws and often initiate the process and then end it by signing the law that he suggested and shepherded through the Congress. But this was never the vision of the Founding Fathers, but since it is not addressed in the Constitution is not an unconstitutional process.
sending American troops to Vietnam
