However prejudicial it might be to the interests of
such State, it would be bound by it if the President shall approve it or
it shall be passed by a vote of two-thirds of both Houses; but it has
a right to demand that the President shall exercise his constitutional
power and arrest it if his judgment is against it. If he surrender this
power, or fail to exercise it in a case where he can not approve, it
would make his formal approval a mere mockery, and would be itself a
violation of the Constitution, and the dissenting State would become
bound by a law which had not been passed according to the sanctions of
the Constitution.
The objection to the exercise of the _veto_ power is founded upon an
idea respecting the popular will, which, if carried out, would
annihilate State sovereignty and substitute for the present Federal
Government a consolidation directed by a supposed numerical majority.
A revolution of the Government would be silently effected and the
States would be subjected to laws to which they had never given their
constitutional consent.
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