Parliament had not made a just use of their unfettered legislative authority and the addition of new states to the British Empire "had produced an addition of new, and sometimes opposite interests". "It is now, therefore", he continued, "the great office of his majesty to resume exercise of his negative power, and to prevent the passage of laws by any one legislature of the empire, which might bear injuriously on the rights and interests of another". In short, Jefferson, while condemning the "wanton exercise" of this prerogative, regarded it as a potentially useful part of the imperial, or federal, system.
In the enthusiasm of 1776, Americans were naturally not inclined to emphasize the advantages of the royal veto; but in the conservative reaction which followed the war, the problem of an effective control upon provincial radicalism or particularism was seen in a new light. In the Federal Convention of 1787, the members were fairly well agreed as to the desirability of some check on state laws; but there was sharp difference of opinion whether this check should be political in character as in the form of a congressional veto, or whether the principle of judicial review should be adopted. Though the debate on this issue is familiar to students of the convention, its significance for the interpretation of colonial institutions has hardly been appreciated.
Madison was, of course, one of the most persistent advocates of the congressional veto and in his discussion of the subject he referred several times to the imperial prerogative of disallowing provincial statutes. He was at work on the problem some time before the convention met. In March, 1787, he wrote to Jefferson, then in Paris, urging the necessity of a federal negative upon state laws "in all cases whatsoever", not merely in order to "guard the national rights", but also to prevent the states from oppressing "the minority within themselves by paper money and other unrighteous measures which favor the interest of the majority". There is a definite reference to colonial' experience in the suggestion that there should be "some emanation" of the federal prerogative "within the several states, so far as to enable them to give a temporary sanction to laws of immediate necessity".[1] This was of course provided for in the imperial system through the action of the royal governor in giving immediate effect to statutes, which nevertheless remained subject to royal disallowance. In a letter to Randolph a few weeks later, Madison referred more explicitly to the British practice, urging that the national government be given
- ↑ Writings (Hunt ed.), II. 326, 327.
