10
CONSTITUTION OF THE U. STATES.
[BOOK III.
become tyrannical by making continual encroachments, and gradually assuming to itself the rights of the executive power, &c. To hinder, therefore, any such encroachments, the king is, himself, a part of the parliament; and, as this is the reason of his being so, very properly, therefore, the share of legislation, which the constitution has placed in the crown, consists in the power of rejecting, rather than resolving; this being sufficient to answer the end proposed. For we may apply to the royal negative, in this instance, what Cicero observes of the negative of the Roman tribunes, that the crown has not any power of doing wrong; but merely of preventing wrong from being done. The crown cannot begin of itself any alterations in the present established law; but it may approve, or disapprove of the alterations suggested, and consented to by the two houses.[1]
- ↑ 1 Black. Comm. 154.