The legislation proposed in the second section, it seems to me, is not in harmony with the spirit and intention of the Constitution.  It can not fail to affect most injuriously the just equipoise of our system of Government, for it establishes a precedent which, if followed, may eventually sweep away every check on arbitrary and unconstitutional legislation.  Thus far during the existence of the Government the Supreme Court of the United States has been viewed by the people as the true expounder of their Constitution, and in the most violent party conflicts its judgments and decrees have always been sought and deferred to with confidence and respect.  In public estimation it combines judicial wisdom and impartiality in a greater degree than any other authority known to the Constitution, and any act which may be construed into or mistaken for an attempt to prevent or evade its decision on a question which affects the liberty of the citizens and agitates the country can not fail to be attended with unpropitious consequences.  It will be justly held by a large portion of the people as an admission of the unconstitutionally of the act on which its judgment may be forbidden or forestalled, and may interfere with that willing acquiescence in its provisions which is necessary for the harmonious and efficient execution of any law.

For these reasons, thus briefly and imperfectly stated, and for others, of which want of time forbids the enumeration, I deem it my duty to withhold my assent from this bill, and to return it for the reconsideration of Congress.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 20, 1868.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return without my signature a bill entitled “An act to admit the State of Arkansas to representation in Congress.”

The approval of this bill would be an admission on the part of the Executive that the “Act for the more efficient government of the rebel States,” passed March 2, 1867, and the acts supplementary thereto were proper and constitutional.  My opinion, however, in reference to those measures has undergone no change, but, on the contrary, has been strengthened by the results which have attended their execution.  Even were this not the case, I could not consent to a bill which is based upon the assumption either that by an act of rebellion of a portion of its people the State of Arkansas seceded from the Union, or that Congress may at its pleasure expel or exclude a State from the Union, or interrupt its relations with the Government by arbitrarily depriving it of representation in the Senate and House of Representatives.  If Arkansas is a State not in the Union, this bill does not admit it as a State into the Union.  If, on the other hand, Arkansas is a State in the Union, no legislation is necessary to declare it entitled “to representation in Congress as one of the States of the Union.”  The Constitution already declares that “each State shall have at least one Representative;” that the Senate “shall be composed of two Senators from each State,” and “that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”