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UNITED STATES v. TEXAS

Alito, J., dissenting

“the pretended Power of Dispensing with Laws or the Execution of Laws by Rega[l] Authorit[y] as it ha[s] bee[n] assumed and exercised of late.”^[1]

By the time of the American Revolution, British monarchs had long abandoned the power to resist laws enacted by Parliament,^[2] but the Declaration of Independence charged George III with exercising those powers with respect to colonial enactments. One of the leading charges against him was that he had “forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, … ha[d] utterly neglected to attend to them.”^[3]

By 1787, six State Constitutions contained provisions prohibiting the suspension of laws,^[4] and at the Constitutional Convention, a proposal to grant the President suspending authority was unanimously defeated.^[5] Many

↑ An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown (Bill of Rights), 1 W. & M., Sess. 2, c. 2 (1689).
↑ The last time a British monarch withheld assent to a bill enacted by Parliament was in 1708. 18 HL J. 506 (Mar. 11, 1708).
↑ Declaration of Independence ¶4; In 1774, Jefferson had addressed the subject of this charge, explaining that British monarchs “for several ages past” had “declined the exercise of this power in that part of [the] empire called Great Britain” but had resumed the practice in the American Colonies and had “rejected laws of the most salutary tendency,” such as one forbidding the importation of slaves. T. Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774), https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffsumm.asp. See G. Wills, Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence 69 (1978).
↑ See generally S. Calabresi, S. Agudo, & K. Dore, State Bills of Rights in 1787 and 1791: What Individual Rights Are Really Deeply Rooted in American History and Tradition? 85 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1451, 1534–1535 (2012) (reporting that six State Constitutions had such provisions in 1787, rising to eight by 1791).
↑ 1 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 103–104 (M. Farrand ed. 1966). See generally R. Beeman, Plain, Honest Men: The

[1] An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown (Bill of Rights), 1 W. & M., Sess. 2, c. 2 (1689).

[2] The last time a British monarch withheld assent to a bill enacted by Parliament was in 1708. 18 HL J. 506 (Mar. 11, 1708).

[3] Declaration of Independence ¶4; In 1774, Jefferson had addressed the subject of this charge, explaining that British monarchs “for several ages past” had “declined the exercise of this power in that part of [the] empire called Great Britain” but had resumed the practice in the American Colonies and had “rejected laws of the most salutary tendency,” such as one forbidding the importation of slaves. T. Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774), https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffsumm.asp. See G. Wills, Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence 69 (1978).

[4] See generally S. Calabresi, S. Agudo, & K. Dore, State Bills of Rights in 1787 and 1791: What Individual Rights Are Really Deeply Rooted in American History and Tradition? 85 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1451, 1534–1535 (2012) (reporting that six State Constitutions had such provisions in 1787, rising to eight by 1791).

[p26-5] 1 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 103–104 (M. Farrand ed. 1966). See generally R. Beeman, Plain, Honest Men: The

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