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11 The Council of Revision and the Veto Power From Reports of the Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1821(Albany, 1821),pp. 50–54,56–57 , 61–63, 65–69. When the committee on the Council of Revision presented its report on December 5,Peter R. Livingston at once moved to lower the vote required in the legislature to override the governor’s negative from two-thirds, as proposed, to a simple majority. Livingston was a w ealthy gentleman farmer f rom Dutchess County, a philosophical democrat, and an ardent follower ofhis “political mentor,” Erastus Root. Jonas Platt, the judge, answered Livingston. He made a defense of the council, only a portion of which is given in the part of his speech reproduced below.Platt was then fifty-four years old.After he was forced off the supreme court in 1823, he built up a lucr ative practice. Root despised Platt and his brethren of the robe—the robe of despotism in his opinion.His stinging retort is a fair sample of his style. Root was Connecticut born, a lawyer, forty-eight years of age, with a record ofservice in Congress and thestate assembly. He became the first lieutenant governor under the new constitution but would never in his later career surpass his performance in the convention. James Tallmadge, who scoffed at the radicals’ “majesty of democracy,” is best remembered as the Congressman whose resolution of 1819 precipitated the Missouri Compromise. A Dutchess County lawyer, and one of the leading mo derates in the convention, Tallmadge remained f or many years an important figure in New York politics. The Livingston amendment was rejected and the committee resolution adopted on September 8. . . . M r . Liv ingsto n. . . . It is a fact not to be disguised,that a towering majority of this Convention represent the interests, feelings, and views of 134 The New York Convention the friends of democratic government. In a republican government it will not be denied that all the power of the legislature is vested in,and emanates from, the people. If that maxim be not contr overted, he was in fav our of expunging every article in the constitution, which contravenes that great principle. He should propose a substitute in conformity with that principle. If the third article of the constitution, which relates to the council of revision , had been administer ed with integrity and wisdom, the amendment now proposed would never have been suggested. It would have excited the admiration of every jurist, and that feature would have been the pr ide of the constitution itself. If the construction of that great patriot and statesman , now living, and who once pr esided over the destinies of the state , had been followed, this amendment would never have been brought into contemplation. He gave the wise construction to it.When a law had passed both branches of the legislature, and was presented to the council, the only inquiry was, is it in violation of constitutional rights. If he found no defect in the constitutionality of the law , he did not extend his inquir ies to its expediency, or its tendency to promote the public good; but he left that to the judgment, good sense, and patriotism, which have ever characterized the representatives of the people. He declared that the two branches of the legislature ought to be the judges of what conduced to the public good.But the moment they began to assume the pow er of judging as to the expediency of laws, the people became alarmed. The wisdom of the r emark cannot be questioned,that from experience we derive every thing, and from the want of it, we are exposed to every thing. Then let me for a moment turn the attention of the Conv ention to our sister states. You will find that seven states, viz. Maine, New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi, have vested the veto in the hands of the gov ernor, and in the e vent of a bill being returned, they require it to be passed b y a majority of two thirds of each branch of the legislatur e. In the states of Rhode-Island, New-Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Ohio, no veto is provided by their constitutions. In Connecticut, Kentucky, Tennessee , Indiana, Missouri, and Alabama, the principle for which he was contending had been adopted, and the veto was placed in the hands of the governor; but if he...

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