That a majority of the Senate now concurs in the claim of the House adds to the gravity of the situation, but does not alter the question at issue.  The new doctrine, if maintained, will result in a consolidation of unchecked and despotic power in the House of Representatives.  A bare majority of the House will become the Government.  The Executive will no longer be what the framers of the Constitution intended—­an equal and independent branch of the Government.  It is clearly the constitutional duty of the President to exercise his discretion and judgment upon all bills presented to him without constraint or duress from any other branch of the Government.  To say that a majority of either or both of the Houses of Congress may insist upon the approval of a bill under the penalty of stopping all of the operations of the Government for want of the necessary supplies is to deny to the Executive that share of the legislative power which is plainly conferred by the second section of the seventh article of the Constitution.  It strikes from the Constitution the qualified negative of the President.  It is said that this should be done because it is the peculiar function of the House of Representatives to represent the will of the people.  But no single branch or department of the Government has exclusive authority to speak for the American people.  The most authentic and solemn expression of their will is contained in the Constitution of the United States.  By that Constitution they have ordained and established a Government whose powers are distributed among coordinate branches, which, as far as possible consistently with a harmonious cooperation, are absolutely independent of each other.  The people of this country are unwilling to see the supremacy of the Constitution replaced by the omnipotence of any one department of the Government.

The enactment of this bill into a law will establish a precedent which will tend to destroy the equal independence of the several branches of the Government.  Its principle places not merely the Senate and the Executive, but the judiciary also, under the coercive dictation of the House.  The House alone will be the judge of what constitutes a grievance, and also of the means and measure of redress.  An act of Congress to protect elections is now the grievance complained of; but the House may on the same principle determine that any other act of Congress, a treaty made by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, a nomination or appointment to office, or that a decision or opinion of the Supreme Court is a grievance, and that the measure of redress is to withhold the appropriations required for the support of the offending branch of the Government.